LI  B  RAR.Y 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 
OF    ILLI  NOIS 

326.7 
P94 


uwi 


santr 


THE 


PRO-SLAYERY  ARGUMENT; 


AS  MAINTAINED  BY  THE  MOST 


CONTAINING  THE 


SEVERAL  ESSAYS,  ON  THE  SUBJECT, 


CHANCELLOR  HARPER,  GOVERNOR  HAMMOND, 
DR.  SIMMS,  AND  PROFESSOR  DEW. 


CHARLESTON: 

WALKER,   RICHARDS    &    CO 
1852. 


HARPER  ON  SLAVERY. 


TtTw  inctit.nt.inn  of  domestic  slavery  exists  over  far  the  great  - 
NOTICE 

AFTER  CAREFUL  EXAMINATION  OF  THE 
INNER  MARGIN  AND  TYPE  OF  MATERIAL 
WE  HAVE  SEWN  THIS  VOLUME  BY  HAND 
SO  IT  CAN  BE  MORE  EASILY  OPENED 
AND  READ. 


-  It    IS   UeilOUUCeu  aa 


political  evils.  Its  existence,  and  every  hour  of  its  continu- 
ance, is  regarded  as  the  crime  of  the  communities  in  which  it 
is  found.  Even  by  those  in  the  countries  alluded  to,  who  re- 
gard it  with  the  most  indulgence  or  the  least  abhorrence  — 
who  attribute  no  criminality  to  the  present  generation  —  -who 
found  it  in  existence,  and  have  not  yet  been  able  to  devise 
the  means  of  abolishing  it,  —  it  is  pronounced  a  misfortune  and 
a  curse  injurious  and  dangerous  always,  and  which  must  be 
finally  fatal  to  the  societies  which  admit  it.  This  is  no  longer 
regarded  as  a  subject  of  argument  and  investigation.  The 
opinions  referred  to  are  assumed  as  settled,  or  the  truth  of 
them  as  self-evident.  If  any  voice  is  raised  among  ourselves 
to  extenuate  or  .to  vindicate,  it  is  unheard.  The  judgment  is 
made  up.  "We  can  have  no  hearing  before  the  tribunal  of 
1 


HARPER  ON  SLAVERY. 


THE  institution  of  domestic  slavery  exists  over  far  the  great- 
er portion  of  the  inhabited  earth.  Until  Avithin  a  very  few 
centuries,  it  may  be  said  to  have  existed  over  the  whole  earth 
— at  least  in  all  those  portions  of  it  which  had  made  any  ad- 
vances towards  civilization.  "VWfiiight  safely  conclude  then, 
that  it  is  deeply  founded  in  the  nature  of  man  and  the  exigen- 
cies of  human  society.  Yet,  in  the  few  countries  in  which  it 
has  been  abolished — claiming,  perhaps  justly,  to  be  farthest 
advanced  in  civilization  and  intelligence,  but  which  have  had 
the  smallest  opportunity  of  observing  its  true  character  and 
effects — it  is  denounced  as  the  most  intolerable  of  social  and 
political  evils.  Its  existence,  and  every  hour  of  its  continu- 
ance, is  regarded  as  the  crime  of  the  communities  in  which  it 
is  found.  Even  by  those  in  the  countries  alluded  to,  who  re- 
gard it  with  the  most  indulgence  or  the  least  abhorrence — 
who  attribute  no  criminality  to  the  present  generation — who 
found  it  in  existence,  and  have  not  yet  been  able  to  devise 
the  means  of  abolishing  it, — it  is  pronounced  a  misfortune  and 
a  curse  injurious  and  dangerous  always,  and  which  must  be 
finally  fatal  to  the  societies  which  admit  it.  This  is  no  longer 
regarded  as  a  subject  of  argument  and  investigation.  The 
opinions  referred  to  are  assumed  as  settled,  or  the  truth  of 
them  as  self-evident.  If  any  voice  is  raised  among  ourselves 
to  extenuate  or  .to  vindicate,  it  is  unheard.  The  judgment  is 
made  up.  We  can  have  no  hearing  before  the  tribunal  of 

i 


HARPERS  MEMOIR  ON 


3  civmzed  wo*rTfl.    ^^fca  t^pi 


the  civnized  worW.    ^^fci  t5j>%T^  a^UffLit^is  more  im- 
v  Jtee"  inhabitants  of  the  slavenolaing'^ates  of 


America,  insulatecf  as  we  are}*by  this  institution,  and  cut  off, 
in  some  degree,  from  the  communion  and  sympathies  of  the 
world  by  which  we  are  surrounded,  or  Avith  which  we  have 
intercourse,  and  exposed  continually  to  their  animadversions 
and  attacks,  should  thoroughly  understand  this  subject,  and 
our  strength  and  weakness  in  relation  to  it.  If  it  be  thus 
criminal,  dangerous,  and  fatal ;  and  if  it  be  possible  to  devise 
means  of  freeing  ourselves  from  it,  we  ought  at  once  to  set 
about  the  employing  of  those  means.  It  would  be  the  most 
wretched  and  imbecile  fatuity,  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  im- 
pending dangers  and  horrors,  and  "  drive  darkling  down  the 
current  of  our  fate,"  till  we  are  overwhelmed  in  the  final  de- 
struction. If  we  are  tyrants,  cruel,  unjust,  oppressive,  let  us 
humble  ourselves  and  repent  in  the  sight  of  heaven,  that  the 
foul  stain  may  be  cleansed,  and  we  enabled  to  stand  erect  as 
having  common  claims  to  humanity  with  our  fellow-men. 

But  if  we  are  nothing  of  all  this ;  if  we  commit  no  injustice 
or  cruelty  ;  if  the  maintenance  of  our  institutions  be  essential 
to  our  prosperity,  our  character,  our  safety,  and  the  safety  of 
all  that  is  dear  to  us,  let  us  enlighten  our  minds  and  fortify 
our  hearts  to  defend  them. 

It  is  a  somewhat  singular  evidence  of  the  indisposition  of 
the  rest  of  the  world  to  hear  anything  more  on  this  subject, 
that  perhaps  the  most  profound,  original,  and  truly  philo- 
sophical treatise,  which  has  appeared  within  the  time  of  my 
recollection,*  seems  not  to  have  attracted  the  slightest  atten- 
tion out  of  the  limits  of  the  slaveholding  States  themselves. 
If  truth,  reason,  and  conclusive  argument,  propounded  with 
admirable  temper  and  perfect  candor,  might  be  supposed  to 

*  President  Dew's  Review  of  the  Virginia  Debates  on  the  subject  of 
Slavery, 


HARPER  S    MEMOIR    ON    SLAVERY.  3 

have  an  effect  on  the  minds  of  men,  we  should  think  this 
work  would  have  put  an  end  to  agitation  on-the  subject.  The 
author  has  rendered  inappreciable  service  to  the  South  in  en- 
lightening them  on  the  subject  of  their  own  institutions,  and 
turning  back  that  monstrous  tide  of  folly  and  madness  which, 
if  it  had  rolled  on,  would  have  involved  his  own  great  State 
along  with  the  rest  of  the  slaveholding  States  in  a  common 
ruin.  But  beyond  these,  he  seems  to  have  produced  no  effect 
whatever.  The  denouncers  of  Slavery,  with  whose  produc- 
tions the  press  groans,  seems  to  be  unaware  of  his  existence — 
unaware  that  there  is  reason  to  be  encountered  or  argument 
to  be  answered.  They  assume  that  the  truth  is  known  and 
settled,  and  only  requires  to  be  enforced  by  denunciation. 

Another  vindicator  of  the  South  has  appeared  in  an  indi- 
vidual who  is  among  those  that  have  done  honor  to  Ameri- 
can literature.*  With  conclusive  argument,  and  great  force 
of  expression,  he  has  defended  Slavery  from  the  charge  of  in- 
justice or  immorality,  and  shewn  clearly  the  unspeakable 
cruelty  and  mischief  which  must  result  from  any  scheme  of 
abolition.  He  does  not  live  among  slaveholders,  and  it  can- 
not be  said  of  him,  as  of  others,  that  his  mind  is  warped  by 
interest,  or  his  moral  sense  blunted  by  habit  and  familiarity 
with  abuse.  These  circumstances,  it  might  be  supposed, 
would  have  secured  him  hearing  and  consideration.  lie 
seems  to-  be  equally  unheeded,  and  the  work  of  denunciation 
disdaining  argument,  still  goes  on. 

President  Dew  has  shewn  that  the  institution  of  Slavery  is 
a  principal  cause  of  civilization.  Perhaps  nothing  can  bo 
more  evident  than  that  it  is  the  sole  cause.  If  anything  can 
be  predicated  as  universally  true  of  uncultivated  man,  it  is 
that  he  will  not  labor  beyond  what  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
maintain  his  existence.  Labor  is  pain  to  those  who  are  unac- 
*  Paulding  on  Slavery. 


4       ,  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERT. 

customed  to  it,  and  the  nature  of  man  is  averse  to  pain. 
Even  with  all  the  training,  the  helps  and  motives  of  civiliza- 
tion, we  find  that  this  aversion  cannot  be  overcome  in  many 
individuals  of  the  most  cultivated  societies.  The  coercion  of 
Slavery  alone  is  adequate  to  form  man  to  habits  of  labor. 
Without  it,  there  can  be  no  accumulation  of  property,  no  pro- 
vidence for  the  future,  no  tastes  for  comfort  or  elegancies, 
which  are  the  characteristics  and  essentials  of  civilization.  He 
who  has  obtained  the  command  of  another's  labor,  first  begins 
to  accumulate  and  provide  for  the  future,  and  the  foundations 
of  civilization  are  laid.  We  find  confirmed  by  experience  that 
which  is  so  evident  in  theory.  Since  the  existence  of  man 
upon  the  earth,  with  no  exception  whatever,  either  of  ancient 
or  modern  times,  every  society  which  has  attained  civiliza- 
tion, has  advanced  to  it  through  this  process. 

Will  those  who  regard  Slavery  as  immoral,  or  crime  in 
itself,  tell  us  that  man  was  not  intended  for  civilization,  but  to 
roam  the  earth  as  a  biped  brute  ?  That  he  was  not  to  raise 
his  eyes  to  heaven,  or  be  conformed  in  his  nobler  faculties  to 
the  image  of  his  Maker  ?  Or  will  they  say  that  the  Judge  of 
all  the  earth  has  done  wrong  in  ordaining  the  means  by  which 
alone  that  end  can  be  obtained  ?  It  is  true  that  the  Creator 
can  make  the  wickedness  as  well  as  the  wrath  of  man  to 
praise  him,  and  bring  forth  the  most  benevolent  results  from 
the  most  atrocious  actions.  But  in  such  cases,  it  is  the  mo- 
tive of  the  actor  alone  which  condemns  the  action.  The  act 
itself  is  good,  if  it  promotes  the  good  purposes  of  God,  and 
would  be  approved  by  him,  if  that  result  only  were  intended. 
Do  they  not  blaspheme  the  providence  of  God  who  denounce 
as  wickedness  and  outrage,  that  which  is  rendered  indispensa- 
ble to  his  purposes  in  the  government  of  the  world  ?  Or  at 
what  stage  of  the  progress  of  society  will  they  say  that  Sla- 
very ceases  to  be  necessary,  and  its  very  existence  becomes 


HARPER  S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  5 

sin  and  crime  ?  I  am  aware  that  such  argument  would  have 
little  effect  on  those  with  whom  it  would  be  degrading  to  con- 
tend— who  pervert  the  inspired  writings — which  in  some 
parts  expressly  sanction  Slavery,  and  throughout  indicate 
most  clearly  that  it  is  a  civil  institution,  with  which  religion 
has  no  concern — with  a  shallowness  and  presumption  not  less 
flagrant  and  shameless  than  his,  who  would  justify  murder 
from  the  text,  "  and  Phineas  arose  and  executed  judgment." 

There  seems  to  be  something  in  this  subject  which  blunts 
the  perceptions,  and  darkens  and  confuses  the  understandings 
and  moral  feelings  of  men.  Tell  them  that,  of  necessity,  in 
every  civilized  society,  there  must  be  an  infinite  variety  of 
conditions  and  employments,  from  the  most  eminent  and  in- 
tellectual, to  the  most  servile  and  laborious  ;  that  the  negro 
race,  from  their  temperament  aud  capacity,  are  peculiarly 
suited  to  the  situation  which  they  occupy,  and  not  less  happy 
in  it  than  any  corresponding  class  to  be  found  in  the  world ; 
prove  incontestibly  that  no  scheme  of  emancipation  could  be 
carried  into  effect  without  the  most  intolerable  mischiefs  and 
calamities  to  both  master  and  slave,  or  without  probably 
throwing  a  large  and  fertile  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  out 
of  the  pale  of  civilization — and  you  have  done  nothing.  They 
reply,  that  whatever  may  be  the  consequence,  you  are  bound 
to  do  right ;  that  man  has  a  right  to  himself,  and  man  can- 
not have  property  in  man  ;  that  if  the  negro  race  be  natural- 
ly inferior  in  mind  and  character,  they  are  not  less  entitled 
to  the  rights  of  humanity ;  that  if  they  are  happy  in  their 
condition,  it  affords  but  the  stronger  evidence  of  their  degra- 
dation, and  renders  them  still  more  objects  of  commiseration. 
They  repeat,  as  the  fundamental  maxim  of  our  civil  policy, 
that  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal,  and  quote  from  our 
Declaration  of  Independence,  "that  men  are  endowed  by 
1* 


6  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  among  which  are 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness." 

It  is  not  the  first  time  that  I  have  had  occasion  to  observe 
that  men  may  repeat  with  the  utmost  confidence,  some  maxim 
or  sentimental  phrase,  as  self-evident  or  admitted  truth, 
which  is  either  palpably  false,  or  to  which,  upon  examination, 
it  will  be  found  that  they  attach  no  definite  idea.  Notwith- 
standing our  respect  for  the  important  document  which  de- 
clared our  independence,  yet  if  any  thing  be  found  in  it,  and 
especially  in  what  may  be  regarded  rather  as  its  ornament 
than  its  substance — false,  sophistical  or  unmeaning,  that  re- 
spect should  not  screen  it  from  the  freest  examination. 

All  men  are  born  free  and  equal.  Is  it  not  palpably  near- 
er the  truth  to  say  that  no  man  was  ever  born  free,  and  that 
no  two  men  were  ever  born  equal  ?  Man  is  born  in  a  state 
of  the  most  helpless  dependence  on  others.  He  continues 
subject  to  the  absolute  control  of  others,  and  remains  without 
many  of  the  civil  and  all  of  the  political  privileges  of  his  so- 
ciety, until  the  period  which  the  laws  have  fixed  as  that  at 
which  he  is  supposed  to  have  attained  the  maturity  of  his 
faculties.  Then  inequality  is  further  developed,  and  becomes 
infinite  in  every  society,  and  under  whatever  form  of  govern- 
ment. Wealth  and  poverty,  fame  or  obscurity,  strength  or 
weakness,  knowledge  or  ignorance,  ease  or  labor,  power  or 
subjection,  mark  the  endless  diversity  in  the  condition  of  men. 

But  we  have  not  arrived  at  the  profundity  of  the  maxim. 
This  inequality  is,  in  a  great  measure,  the  result  of  abuses  in 
the  institutions  of  society.  They  do  not  speak  of  what  exists, 
but  of  what  ought  to  exist.  Every  one  should  be  left  at  lib- 
erty to  obtain  'all  the  advantages  of  society  which  he  can  com- 
pass, by  the  free  exertion  of  his  faculties,  unimpeded  by  civil 
restraints.  It  may  be  said  that  this  would  not  remedy  the 


HARPER'S    MEMOIR    OX    SLAVERY.  7 

evils  of  society  -which  are  complained  of.  The  inequalities  to 
which  I  have  referred,  with  the  misery  resulting  from  them, 
would  exist  in  fact  under  the  freest  and  most  popular  form  of 
government  that  man  could  devise.  But  what  is  the  founda- 
tion of  the  bold  dogma  so  confidently  announced  ?  Females 
are  human  and  rational  beings.  They  may  be  found  of  bet- 
ter faculties,  and  better  qualified  to  exercise  political  privileges, 
and  to  attain  the  distinctions  of  society,  titan  many  men  ;  yet 
who  complains  of  the  order  of  society  by  which  they  are  ex- 
cluded from  them  ?  For  I  do  not  speak  of  the  few  who  would 
desecrate  them  ;  do  violence  to  the  nature  which  their  Creator 
has  impressed  upon  them  ;  drag  them  from  the  position  which 
they  necessarily  occupy  for  the  existence  of  .civilized  society, 
and  in  which  they  constitute  its  Iblessing  and  ornament — the 
only  position  which  they  have  ever  occupied  in  any  human 
society — to  place  them  in  a  situation  in  which  they  would  be 
alike  miserable  and  degraded.  Low  as  wre  descend  in  com- 
bating the  theories  of  presumptuous  dogmatists,  it  cannot  be 
necessary  to  stoop  to  this.  A  youth  of  eighteen  may  have 
powers  which  cast  into  the  shade  those  of  any  of  his  more  ad- 
vanced cotemporaries.  He  may  be  capable  of  serving  or  sa- 
ving his  country,  and  if  not  permitted  to  do  so  now,  the  occa- 
sion may  have  been  lost  forever.  But  he  can  exercise  no  po- 
litical privilege,  or  aspire  to  any  political  distinction.  It  is 
said  that,  of  necessity,  society  must  exclude  from  some  civjl 
and  political  privileges  those  who  are  unfitted  to  exercise 
them,  by  infirmity,  unsuitableness  of  character,  or  defect  of 
discretion  ;  that  of  necessity  there  must  be  some  general  rule 
on  the  subject,  and  that  any  rule  which  can  be  devised  will 
operate  with  hardship  and  injustice  on  individuals.  This  is 
all  that  can  be  said,  and  all  that  need  be  said.  It  is  saying, 
in  other  words,  that  the  privileges  in  question  are  no  matter 
of  natural  right,  but  to  be  settled  by  convention,  as  the  good 


8  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  OJT  SLAVERY. 

and  safety  of  society  may  require.  If  society  should  disfran- 
chise individuals  convicted  of  infamous  crimes,  would  this  be 
an  invasion  of  natural  right  ?  Yet  this  would  not  be  justified 
on  the  score  of  their  moral  guilt,  but  that  the  good  of  society 
required  or  would  be  promoted  by  it.  We  admit  the  exist- 
ence of  a  moral  law,  binding  on  societies  as  on  individuals. 
Society  must  act  in  good  faith.  No  man,  or  body  of  men,  has 
a  right  to  inflict  pain  or  privation  on  others,  unless  with  a 
view,  after  full  and  impartial  deliberation,  to  prevent  a  greater 
evil.  If  this  deliberation  be  had,  and  the  decision  made  in 
good  faith,  there  can  be  no  imputation  of  moral  guilt.  Has 
any  politician  contended  that  the  very  existence  of  govern- 
ments in  which  there  are  orders  privileged  by  law,  constitutes  a 
violation  of  morality  ;  that  their  continuance  is  a  crime,  which 
men  are  bound  to  put  an  end  to,  without  any  consideration  of 
the  good  or  evil  to  result  from  the  change  ?  Yet  this  is  the 
natural  inference  from  the  dogma  of  the  natural  equality  of 
men  as  applied  to  our  institution  of  Slavery — an  equality  not 
to  be  invaded  without  injustice  and  wrong,  and  requiring  to 
be  restored  instantly,  unqualifiedly,  and  without  reference  to 
consequences. 

This  is  sufficiently  common-place,  but  we  are  sometimes 
driven  to  common-place.  It  is  no  less  a  false  and  shallow, 
than  a  presumptuous  philosophy,  which-  theorizes  on  the  af- 
fairs of  men  as  of  a  problem  to  be  solved  by  some  unerring 
rule  of  human  reason,  without  reference  to  the  designs  of  a 
superior  intelligence,  so  far  as  he  has  been  pleased  to  indicate 
them,  in  their  creation  and  destiny.  Man  is  born  to  subjec- 
tion. Not  only  during  infancy  is  he  dependent,  and  under 
the  control  of  others ;  at  all  ages,  it  is  the  very  bias  of  his 
nature,  that  the  strong  and  the  wise  should  control  the  weak 
and  the  ignorant.  So  it  has  been  since  the  days  of  Nimrod. 
The  existence  of  some  form  of  slavery  in  all  ages  and  coun- 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  9 

tries,  is  proof  enough,  of  this.  He  is  born  to  subjection  as  he 
is  born  in  sin  and  ignorance.  To  make  an}r  considerable  pro- 
gress in  knowledge,  the  continued  efforts  of  successive  genera- 
tions, and  the  diligent  training  and  unwearied  exertions  of  the 
individual,  are  requisite.  To  make  progress  in  moral  virtue, 
not  less  time  and  effort,  aided  by  superior  help,  are  necessary ; 
and  it  is  only  by  the  matured  exercise  of  his  knowledge  and 
his  virtue,  that  he  can  attain  to  civil  freedom.  Of  all  things, 
the  existence  of  civil  liberty  is  most  the  result  of  artificial  in- 
stitution. The  proclivity  of  the  natural  man  is  to  domineer 
or  to  be  subservient.  A  noble  result,  indeed,  but  in  the  at- 
taining of  which,  as  in  the  instances  of  knowledge  and  virtue, 
the  Creator,  for  his  own.  purposes,  has  set  a  limit  beyond 
which  we  cannot  go. 

But  he  who  is  most  advanced  in  knowledge,  is  most  sensi- 
ble of  his  own  ignorance,  and  how  much  must  forever  be  un- 
known to  man  in  his  present  condition.  As  I  have  heard  it 
expressed,  the  further  you  extend  the  circle  of  light,  the  wider 
is  the  horizon  of  darkness.  He  who  has  made  the  greatest 
progress  in  moral  purity,  is  most  sensible  of  the  depravity,  not 
only  of  the  world  around  him,  but  of  his  own  heart,  and  the 
imperfection  of  his  best  motives ;  and  this  he  knows  that  men 
must  feel  and  lament  so  long  as  they  continue  men.  So 
when  the  greatest  progress  in  civil  liberty  has  been  made,  the 
enlightened  lover  of  liberty  will  know  that  there  must  remain 
much  inequality,  much  injustice,  much  slavery,  which  no  hu- 
man wisdom  or  virtue  will  ever  be  able  wholly  to  prevent  or 
redress.  As  I  have  before  had  the  honor  to  say  to  this  Socie- 
ty, the  condition  of  our  whole  existence  is  but  to  struggle 
with  evils — to  compare  them — to  choose  between  them,  and, 
so  far  as  we  can,  to  mitigate  them.  To  say  that  there  is  evil 
in  any  institution,  is  only  to  say  that  it  is  human. 

And  can  we  doubt  but  that  this  long  discipline  and  labori- 


10  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  OK  SLAVERY. 

on?  process,  by  which  men  are  required  to  work  out  the  eleva- 
tion and  improvement  of  their  individual  nature  and  their 
social  condition,  is  imposed  for  a  great  and  benevolent  end? 
Our  faculties  are  not  adequate  to  the  solution  of  the  mystery, 
why  it  should  be  so  ;  but  the  truth  is  clear,  that  the  world  was 
not  intended  for  the  seat  of  universal  knowledge,  or  goodness, 
or  happiness,  or  freedom. 

Man  has  been  endowed  by  his  Creator  with  certain  inalien- 
able rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness.  What  is  meant  by  the  inalienable  right  of  liber- 
ty ?  Has  any  one  who  has  used  the  words  ever  asked  himself 
this  question  ?  Does  it  mean  that  a  man  has  no  right  to  ali- 
enate his  own  liberty — to  sell  himself  and  his  posterity  for 
slaves  ?  This  would  seem  to  be  the  more  obvious  meaning- 
When  the  word  right  is  used,  it  has  reference  to  some  law 
which  sanctions  it,  and  would  be  violated  by  its  invasion.  It 
must  refer  either  to  the  general  law  of  morality,  or  the  law  of 
the  country — the  law  of  God  or  the  law  of  man.  If  the  law 
of  any  country  permitted  it,  it  would  of  course  be  absurd  to 
say  that  the  law  of  that  country  was  violated  by  such  aliena- 
tion. If  it  have  any  meaning  in  this  respect,  it  must  mean 
that  though  the  law  of  the  country  permitted  it,  the  man 
would  be  guilty  of  an  immoral  act  who  should  thus  alienate 
his  liberty.  A  fit  question  for  schoolmen  to  discuss,  and  the 
consequences  resulting  from  its  decision  as  important  as  from 
any  of  theirs.  Yet  who  will  say  that  the  man  pressed  by 
famine,  and  in  prospect  of  death,  would  be  criminal  for  such 
an  act  ?  Self-preservation,  as  is  truly  said,  is  the  first  law  of 
nature.  •  High  and  peculiar  characters,  by  elaborate  cultiva- 
tion, may  be  taught  to  prefer  death  to  slavery,  but  it  would 
be  folly  to  prescribe  this  as  a  duty  to  the  mass  of  mankind. 

If  any  rational  meaning  can  be  attributed  to  the  sentence 
I  have  quoted,  it  is  this  : — That  the  society,  or  the  individu- 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  11 

als  who  exercise  the  powers  of  government,  are  guilty  of  a 
violation  of  the  law  of  God  or  of  morality,  when,  by  any  law 
or  public  act,  they  deprive  men  of  life  or  liberty,  or  restrain 
them  in  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Yet  every  government 
does,  and  of  necessity  must,  deprive  men  of  life  and  liberty 
for  offences  agaipst  society.  Restrain  them  in  the  pursuit  of 
happiness  !  Why  all  the  laws  of  society  are  intended  for 
nothing  else,  but  to  restrain  men  from  the  pursuit  of  happiness, 
according  to  their  own  ideas  of  happiness  or  advantage — 
which  the  phrase  must  mean  if  it  means  any  thing.  And  by 
what  right  does  society  punish  by  the  loss  of  life  or  liberty  ? 
Not  on  account  of  the  moral  guilt  of  the  criminal — not  by 
impiously  and  arrogantly  assuming  the  prerogative  of  the 
Almighty,  to  dispense  justice  or  suffering,  according  to  moral 
desert.  It  is  for  its  own  protection — it  is  the  right  of  self- 
defence.  If  there  existed  the  blackest  moral  turpitude,  which 
by  its  example  or  consequences,  could  be  of  no  evil  to  society, 
government  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  that.  If  an  ac- 
tion, the  most  harmless  in  its  moral  character,  could  be  dan- 
gerous to  the  security  of  society,  society  would  have  the  per- 
fect right  to  punish  it.  If  the  possession  of  a  black  skin 
would  be  otherwise  dangerous  to  society,  society  has  the  same 
right  to  protect  itself  by  disfranchising  the  possessor  of  civil 
privileges,  and  to  continue  the  disability  to  his  posterity,  if 
the  same  danger  would  be  incurred  by  its  removal.  Society 
inflicts  these  forfeitures  for  the  security  of  the  lives  of  its 
members ;  it  inflicts  them  for  the  security  of  their  property, 
the  great  essential  of  civilization  ;  it  inflicts  them  also  for  the. 
protection  of  its  political  institutions,  the  forcible  attempt  to 
overturn  which,  has  always  been  justly  regarded  as  the  great- 
est crime ;  and  who  has  questioned  its  right  so  to  inflict  ? 
"  Man  cannot  have  property  in  man" — a  phrase  as  full  of 
meaning  as,  "  who  slays  fat  oxen  should  himself  be  fat." 


12  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

Certainly  lie  may,  if  the  laws  of  society  allow  it,  and  if  it  be 
on. sufficient  grounds,  neither  he  nor  society  do  wrong. 

And  is  it  by  this — as  we  must  call  it,  however  recom- 
mended to  our  higher  feelings  by  its  associations — well-sound- 
ing, but  unmeaning  verbiage  of  natural  equality  and  inalien- 
able rights,  that  our  lives  are  to  be  put  in  jeopardy,  our  pro- 
perty destroyed,  and  our  political  institutions  overturned  or 
endangered  ?  If  a  people  had  on  its  borders  a  tribe  of  bar- 
barians, whom  no  treaties  or  faith  could  bind,  and  by  whose 
attacks  they  were  constantly  endangered,  against  whom  they 
could  devise  no  security,  but  that  they  should  be  extermi- 
nated or  enslaved ;  would  they  not  have  the  right  to  enslave 
them,  and  keep  them  in  slavery  so  long  as  the  same  danger 
would  be  incurred  by  their  manumission  ?  If  a  civilized  man 
and  a  savage  were  by  chance  placed  together  on  a  desolate 
island,  and  the  former,  by  the  superior  power  of  civilization, 
would  reduce  the  latter  to  subjection,  would  he  not  have  the 
same  right  ?  Would  this  not  be  the  strictest  self-defence  ?  I 
do  not  now  consider,  how  far  we  can  make  out  a  similar  case 
to  justify  our  enslaving  of  the  negroes.  I  speak  to  those  who 
contend  for  inalienable  rights,  and  that  the  existence  of 
slavery  always,  and  under  all  circumstances,  involves  injustice 
and  crime. 

As  I  have  said,  we  acknowledge  the  existence  of  a  moral 
law.  It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  resort  to  the  theory  which 
resolves  all  right  into  force.  The  existence  of  such  a  law  is 
imprinted  on  the  hearts  of  all  human  beings.  But  though 
its  existence  be  acknowledged,  the  mind  of  man  has  hitherto 
been  tasked  in  vain  to  discover  an  unerring  standard  of  mo- 
rality. It  is  a  common  and  undoubted  maxim  of  morality, 
that  you  shall  not  do  evil  that  good  may  come.  You  shall 
not  do  injustice  or  commit  an  invasion  of  the  rights  of  others, 
for  the  sake  of  a  greater  ulterior  good. '  But  what  is  injus- 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  13 

tice,  and  what  are  the  rights  of  others  ?  And  why  are  we 
not  to  commit  the  one  or  invade  the  others  ?  It  is  because  it 
inflicts  pain  or  suffering,  present  or  prospective,  or  cuts  them 
off  from  enjoyment  which  they  might  otherwise  attain.  The 
Creator  has  sufficiently  revealed  to  us  that  happiness  is  the 
great  end  of  existence,  the  sole  object  of  all  animated  and 
sentient  beings.  To  this  he  has  directed  their  aspirations 
and  efforts,  and  we  feel  that  we  thwart  his  benevolent  pur- 
poses when  we  destroy  'or  impede  that  happiness.  This  is  the 
only  natural  right  of  man.  All  other  rights  result  from  the 
conventions  of  society,  and  these,  to  be  sure,  we  are  not  to 
invade,  whatever  good  may  appear  to  ns  likely  to  follow. 
Yet  are  we  in  no  instance  to  inflict  pain  or  suffering,  or  disturb 
enjoyment,  for  the  sake  of  producing  a  greater  good  ?  Is  the 
madman  not  to  be  restrained  who  would  bring  destruction  on. 
himself  or  others  ?  Is  pain  not  to  be  inflicted  on  the  child, 
when  it  is  the  only  means  by  which  he  can  be  effectually 
instructed  to  provide  for  his  own  future  happiness  ?  Is  the 
surgeon  guilty  of  wrong  who  amputates  a  limb  to  preserve 
life  ?  Is  not  the  object  of  all  penal  legislation,  to  inflict  suf- 
fering for  the  sake  of  greater  good  to  be  secured  to  society  ? 

By  what  right  is  it  that  man  exercises  dominion  over  the 
beasts  of  the  field  ;  subdues  them  to  painful  labor,  or  deprives 
them  of  life  for  his  sustenance  or  enjoyment  ?  They  are  not 
rational  beings.  No,  but  they  are  the  creatures  of  God,  sen- 
tient beings,  capable  of  suffering  and  enjoyment^  and  entitled 
to  enjoy  according  to  the  measure  of  their  capacities.  Does 
not  the  voice  of  nature  inform  every  one,  that  he  is  guilty  of 
wrong  when  he  inflicts  on  them  pain  without  necessity  or 
object  ?  If  their  existence  be  limited  to  the  present  life,  it 
affords  the  stronger  argument  for  affording  them  the  brief 
enjoyment  of  which  it  is  capable.  It  is  because  the  greater 
good  is  effected ;  not  only  to  man  but  to  the  inferior  animals 
2 


14  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

•k 

themselves.  The  care  of  man  gives  the  boon  of  existence  to 
myriads  who  would  never  otherwise  have  enjoyed  it,  and  the 
enjoyment  of  their  existence  is  better  provided  for  while  it 
lasts.  It  belongs  to  the  being  of  superior  faculties  to  judge  of 
the  relations  which  shall  subsist  between  himself  and  inferior 
animals,  and  the  use  he  shall  make  of  them  ;  and  he  may 
justly  consider  himself,  who  has  the  greater  capacity  of  enjoy- 
ment, in  the  first  instance.  Yet.  he  must  do  this  conscien- 
tiously, and  no  doubt,  moral  guilt  has  been  incurred  by  the 
infliction  of  pain  on  these  animals,  with  no  adequate  benefit 
to  be  expected.  .1  do  no  disparagement  to  the  dignity  of 
human  nature,  even  in  its  humblest  form,  when  I  say  that  on 
the  very  same  foundation,  with  the  difference  only  of  circum- 
stance and  degree,  rests  the  right  of  the  civilized  and  culti- 
vated man,  over  the  savage  and  ignorant.  It  is  the  order  of 
nature  and  of  God,  that  the  being  of  superior  faculties  and 
knowledge,  and  therefore  of  superior  power,  should  control 
and  dispose  of  those  who  are  inferior.  It  is  as  much  in  the 
order  of  nature,  that  men  should  enslave  each  other,  as  that 
other  animals  should  prey  upon  each  otber.  I  admit  that  he 
does  this  under  the  highest  moral  responsibility,  and  is  most 
guilty  if  he  wantonly  inflicts  misery  or  privation  on  beings 
more  capable  of  enjoyment  or  suffering  than  brutes,  without 
necessity  or  any  view  to  the  greater  good  which  is  to  result.. 
If  we  conceive  of  society  existing  without  government,  and 
that  one  man  by  his  superior  strength,  courage  or  wisdom, 
could  obtain  the  mastery  of  his  fellows,  he  would  have  a  per- 
fect right  to  do  so.  He  would  be  morally  responsible  for  the 
use  of  his  power,  and  guilty  if  he  failed  to  direct  them  so  as 
to  promote  their  happiness  as  well  as  his  own.  -  Moralists 
mve  denounced  the  injustice  and  cruelty  which  have  been 
practised  towards  our  aboriginal  Indians,  by  which  they  have 
been  driven  from  their  native  seats  and  exterminated,  and  no 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  *.     15 

doubt  with  much  justice.  ISTo  doubt,  much  fraud  and  in- 
justice has  been  practised  in  the  circumstances  and  the  man- 
ner of  their  removal.  Yet  who  has  contended  that  civilized 
man  had  no  moral  right  to  possess  -himself  of  the  country  ? 
That  he  was  bound  to  leave  this  wide  and  fertile  continent, 
which  is  capable  of  sustaining  uncounted  myriads  of  a  civi- 
lized race,  to  a  few  roving  and  ignorant  barbarians  ?  Yet  if 
any  thing  is  certain,  it  is  certain  that  there  were  no  means  by 
which  he  could  possess  the  country,  without  exterminating  or 
enslaving  them.  Savage  and  civilized  man  cannot  Ifre  to- 
gether, and  the  savage  can  only  be  tamed  by  b&ing  enslaved 
or  by  having  slaves.  By  enslaving  alone  could  he  have  pre- 
served them/*  And  who  shall  take  upon  himself  to  decide 
that  the  more  benevolent  course,  and  more  pleasing  to  God, 
was  pursued  towards  them,  or  that  it  would  not  have  been 
better  that  they  had  been  enslaved  generally,  as  they  were  in 
particular  instances  ?  It  is  a  refined  philosophy,  and  utterly 
false  in  its  application  to  general  nature,  or  the  mass  of  hu- 
man kind,  which  teaches  that  existence  is  not  the  greatest  of 
all  boons,  and  worthy  of  being  preserved  even  under  the  most 
adverse  circumstances.  The  strongest  instinct  of  all  animated 
beings  sufficiently  proclaims  this.  When  the  last  red  man 
shall  have  vanished  from  our  forests,  the  sole  remaining  traces 
of  his  blood  will  be  found  among  our  enslaved  population.^ 
'  The  African  slave  trade  has  given,  and  will  give,  the  boon  of 
existence  to  millions  and  millions  in  our  country,  who  would 
otherwise  never  have  enjoyed  it,  and  the  enjoyment  of  their 
existence  is  better  provided  for  while  it  lasts.  Or -if,  for  the 
rights  of  man  over  inferior  animals,  we  are  referred  to  reve- 

*  iTefer  to  President  Dew  on  tins  subject. 

t  It  is  not  imcomtaon,  especially  in  Charleston,  to  see  slaves,  after 
many  descents  and  having  mingled  their  blood  with  the  Africans,  pos- 
sessing Indian  hair  and  features. 


16  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

*£ 

iflj 

lation,  which  pronounces — "ye  shall  have  dominion  over  the 
beasts  of  the  field,  and  over  the  fowls  of  the  air,"  we  refer  to 
the  same,  which  declares  not  the  less  explicitly — 

"  Both  the  bondmen  and  bondmaids  which  thou  shalt 
have,  shall  be  of  the  heathen  that  are  among  you.  Of  them 
shall  you  buy  bondmen  and  bondmaids." 

"  Moreover  of  the  children  of  strangers  that  do  sojourn 
among  you,  of  them  shall  ye  buy,  and  of  their  families  that 
are  with  you,  which  they  begot  in  your  land,  and  they  shall 
be  your  possession.  And  ye  shall  take  them  as  an  inheri- 
tance for  your  children  after  you,  to  inherit  them  by  posses- 
sion. They  shall  be  your  bondmen  forever." 

In  moral  investigations,  ambiguity  is  often  occasioned  by 
confounding  the  intrinsic  nature  of  an  action,  as  determined 
by  its  consequence,  with  the  motives  of  the  actor,  involving 
moral  guilt  or  innocence.  If  poison  be  given  with  a  view  to 
destroy  another,  and  it  cures  him  of  disease,  the  poisoner  is 
guilty,  but  the  act  is  beneficent  in  its  results.  If  medicine  be 
given  with  a  view  to  heal,  and  it  happens  to  kill,  he  who  ad- 
ministered it  is  innocent,  but  the  act  is  a  noxious  one.  If 
they  who  begun  and  prosecuted  the  slave  trade,  practised  hor- 
rible cruelties  and  inflicted  much  suffering — as  no  doubt  they 
did,  though  these  have  been  much  exaggerated — for  merely 
selfish  purposes,  and  with  no  view  to  future  good,  they  were 
morally  most  guilty.  So  far  as  unnecessary  cruelty  was  prac- 
tised, the  motive  and  the  act  were  alike  bad.  But  if  we 
could  be  sure  that  the  entire  effect  of  the  trade  has  been  to 
produce  more  happiness  than  would  otherwise  have  existed, 
•we  must  pronounce  it  good,  and  that  it  has  happened  in  the 
ordering  of  God's  providence,  to  whom  evil  cannot  be  im- 
puted. Moral  guilt  has  not  been  imputed  to^Las  Casas,  and 
if  the  importation  of  African  slaves  into  America,  had  the 
effect  of  preventing  more  suffering  than  it  inflicted,  it  was 


HARPERS   MEMOIR    ON   SLAVERY.  17 

* 

good,  both  in  the  motive  and  the  result.  *  freely  admit  that, 
it  is  hardly  possible  to  justify  morally,  those  who  begun  and 
carried  on  the  slave  trade.  Xo  speculation  of  future  good  to 
be.  brought  about,  could  compensate  the  enormous  amount  of 
evil  it  occasioned. 

If  we  should  refer  to  the  common  moral  sense  of  mankind, 
as  determined  by  their  conduct,  in  all  ages  and  countries,  for 
a  standard  of  morality,  it  would  seem  to  be  in  favor  of 
Slavery.  The  will  of  God,  as  determined  by  utility,  would 
be  an  infallible  standard,  if  we  had  an  unerring  measure  of 
utility.  The  utilitarian  philosophy,  as  it  is  commonly  under- 
stood, referring  only  to  the  animal  wants  and  employments, 
and  physical  condition  of  man.  is  utterly  false  artd  degrading. 
If  a  sufficiently  extended  definition  be  given  to  utility,  so  as  to 
include  every  thing  that  may  be  a  source  of  enjoyment  or  suf- 
fering, it  is  for  the  most  part  useless.  How  can  you  compare 
the  pleasures  resulting  from  the  exercise  of  the  understanding, 
the  taste  and  the  imagination,  with  the  animal  enjoyments  of 
the  senses — the  gratification  derived  from  a  fine  poem  with 
that  from  a  rich  banquet  ?  How  are  we  to  weigh  the  pains 
and  enjoyments  of  one  man  highly  cultivated  and  of  great 
sensibility,  against  those  of  many  men  of  blunter  capacity  for 
enjoyment  or  suffering?  And  if  we  could  determine  with 
certainty  in  what  utility  consists,  we  are  so  short-sighted  with 
respect  to  consequences — the  remote  results  of  our  best  con- 
sidered actions  are  so  often  wide  of  our  anticipations,  or  con- 
trary'to  them,  that  we  should  still  be  very  much  in  the  dark. 
But  though  we  cannot  arrive  at  absolute  certainty  with  re- 
spect to  the  utility  of  actions,  it  is  always  fairly  matter  of 
argument.  Though  an  imperfect  standard,  it  is  the  best  we 
have,  and  perhaps  the  Creator  did  not  intend  that  we  shou 
arrive  at  perfect  certainty  with  regard  to  the  morality  of  man 
actions.  If,  after  the  most  careful  examination  of  conse- 
2* 


18  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  OK  SLAVERY. 

quences  that  we  are  able  to  make,  with  due  distrust  of  our- 
selves, we  impartially,  and  in  good  faith,  decide  for  that 
which  appears  likely  to  produce  the  greatest  good,  we  are 
free  from  moral  guilt.  And  I  would  impress  most  earnestly, 
that  with  our  imperfect  and  limited  faculties,  and  short-sight- 
ed as  we  are  to  the  future,  we  can  rarely,  very  rarely  indeed, 
be  justified  in  producing  considerable  present  evil  or  suffering, 
in  the  expectation  of  remote  future  good — if  indeed  this  can 
ever  be  justified. 

In  considering  this  subject,  I  shall  not  regard  it  in  the  first 
instance  in  reference  to  the  present  position  of  the  slavehold- 
ing  States,  or  the  difficulties  which  lie  in  the  way  of  their 
emancipating  their  slaves,  but  as  a  naked,  abstract  question — 
whether  it  is  better  that  the  institution  of  praedial  and  domes- 
tic Slavery  should,  or  should  not,  exist  in  civilized  society. 
And  though  some  of  my  remarks  may  seem  to  have  such  a 
tendency,  let  me  not  be  understood  as  taking  upon  myself  to 
determine  that  it  is  better  that  it  should  exist.  God  forbid 
that  the  responsibility  of  deciding  such  a  question  should 
ever  be  thrown  on  me  or  my  countrymen.  But  this  I  will 
say,  and  not  without  confidence,  that  it  is  in  the  power  of  no 
human  intellect  to  establish  the  contrary  proposition — that  it 
is  better  it  should  not  exist.  This  is  probably  known  but  to 
one  being,  and  concealed  from  human  sagacity. 

There  have  existed  in  various  ages,  and  we  now  see  exist- 
ing in  the  world,  people  in  every  stage  of  civilization,  from 
the  most  barbarous  to  the  most  refined.  Man,  as  I  have  said, 
is  not  born  to  civilization.  He  is  born  rude  and  ignorant. 
But  it  will  be,  I  suppose,  admitted  that  it  is  the  design  of  his 
Creator  that  he  should  attain  to  civilization :  that  religion 
should  be  known,  that  the  comforts  and  elegancies  of  life 
should  be  enjoyed,  that  letters  and  arts  should  be  cultivated ; 
in  short,  that  there  should  be  the.  greatest  possible  develop- 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  19 

ment  of  moral  and  intellectual  excellence..  It  can  hardly  be 
necessary  to  say  any  thing  of  those  who  have  extolled  the 
superior  virtues  and  enjoyments  of  savage  life — a  life  of  phy- 
sical wants  and  sufferings,  of  continual  insecurity,  of  furiou^' 
passions  and  depraved  vices.  Those  who  have  praised  savage 
life,  are  those  "who  have  known  nothing  of  it,  or  who  have 
become  savages  themselves.  But  as  I  have  said,  so  far  as 
reason  or  universal  experience  instruct  us,  the  institution  of 
Slavery  is  an  essential  process  in  emerging  from  savage  life. 
It  must  then  produce  good,  and  promote  the  designs  of  the 
Creator. 

I  add  further,  that  Slavery  anticipates  the  benefits  of  civi- 
lization, and  retards  the  evils  of  civilization.  The  former 
part  of  this  proposition  has  been  so  fully  established  by  a 
writer  of  great  power  of  thought — though  I  fear  his  practical 
conclusions  will  be  found  of  little  value — that  it  is  hardly  ne- 
cessary to  urge  it.*  Property — the  accumulation  of  capital, 
as  it  is  commonly  called — is  the  first  element  of  civilization. 
But  to  accumulate,  or  to  use  capital  to  any  considerable  ex- 
tent, the  combination  of  labor  is  necessary.  In  early  stages 
of  society,  when  people  are  thinly  scattered  over  an  extensive 
territory,  the  labor  necessary  to  extensive  works  cannot  be 
commanded.  Men  are  independent  of  each  other.  Having 
the  command  of  abundance  of  land,  no  one  will  submit  to  be 
employed  in  the  service  of  his  neighbor.  No  one,  therefore, 
can  employ  more  capital  than  he  can  use  with  his  own  hands, 
or  those  of  his  family,  nor  have  an  income  much  beyond 
the  necessaries  of  life.  There  can,  therefore,  be  little  leisure 

. 

*  The  author  of  ''  England  and  America."  We  do,  however,  most 
indignantly  repudiate  his  conclusion,  that  we  are  bound  to  submit  to  a 
tariff  of  protection,  as  an  expedient  for  retaining  our  slaves,  "  the 
force  of  the  -whole  Union  being  required  to  preserve  Slavery,  to  keep 
down  the  slaves." 


20  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ox  SLAVERY. 

• 

for  intellectual  pursuits,  or  means  of  acquiring  the  comforts  or 
elegancies  of  life.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  however,  that 
if  a  man  has  the  command  of  slaves,  he  may  combine  labor, 
and  use  capital  to  any  required  extent,  and  therefore  accumu- 
late wealth.  He  shows  that  no  colonies  have  been  success- 
fully planted  without  some  sort  of  Slavery.  So  we  find  the 
fact  to  be.  It  is  only  in  the  slaveholding  States  of  our  Con- 
federacy, that  wealth  can  be  acquired  by  agriculture — which 
is  the  general  employment  of  our  -whole  country.  Among 
us,  we  know  that  there  is  no  one,  however  humble  his  begin- 
ning, who,  with  persevering  industry,  intelligence,  and  orderly 
and  virtuous  habits,  may  not  attain  to  considerable  opulence. 
So  far  as  wealth  has  been  accumulated  in  the  States  which  do 
not  possess  slaves,  it  has  been  in  cities  by  the  pursuits  of 
commerce,  or  lately,  by  manufactures.  But  the  products  of 
slave  labor  furnish  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  materials  of 
our  foreign  commerce,  which  the  industry  of  those  States  is 
employed  in  transporting  and  exchanging ;  and  among  the 
slaveholding  States  is  to  be  found  the  great  market  for  all  the 
productions  of  their  industry,  of  whatever  kind.  The  pros- 
perity of  those  States,  therefore,  and  the  civilization  of  their 
cities,  have  been  for  the  most  part  created  by  the  existence  of 
Slavery.  Even  in  the  cities,  but  for  a  class  of  population, 
which  our  institutions  have  marked  as  servile,  it  would  be 
scarcely  possible  to  preserve  the  ordinary, habitudes  of  civilized 
life,  by  commanding  the  necessary  menial  and  domestic  ser- 
vice. 

Every  stage  of  human  society,  from  the  most  barbarous  to 
the  most  refined,  has  its  own  peculiar  evils  to  mark  it  as  the 
condition  of  mortality ;  and  perhaps  there  is  none  but  omni- 
potence who  can  say  in  which  the  scale  of  good  or  evil  most 
preponderates.  We  need  say  nothing  of  the  evils  of  savage 
life.  There  is  a  state  of  society  elevated  somewhat  above  it, 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  21 

which  is  to  be  found  in  some  of  the  more  thinly  peopled  por- 
tions of  our  own  country — the  rudest  agricultural  state — 
which  is  thus  characterized  by  the  author  to  whom  I  have  re- 
ferred:  "The  American  of  the  back^woods  has  often  been 
described  to  the  English  as  grossly  ignorant,  dirty,  unsocial, 
delighting  in  rum  and  tobacco,  attached  to  nothing  but  his 
rifle,  adventurous,  restless,  "moi'e  than  half  savage.  Deprived 
of  social  enjoyments  or  excitements,  he  has  recourse  to  those 
of  savage  life,  and  becomes  (for  in  this  respect  the  Americans 
degenerate)  Unfit  for  society."  This  is  no  very  inviting  pic- 
ture, which,  though  exaggerated,  we  know  not  to  be  without 
likeness.  The  evils  of  such  a  state,  I  suppose,  will  hardly  be 
thought  compensated  by  unbounded  freedom,  perfect  equal- 
ity, and  ample  means  of  subsistence. 

But  let  us  take  another  stage  in  the  progress — which  to 
many  will  appear  to  offer  all  that  is  desirable  in  existence,  and 
realize  another  Utopia.  Let  us  suppose  a  state  of  society  in 
which  all  shall  have  property,  and  there  shall  be  no  great  in- 
equality of  property — in  which  society  shall  be  so  much  con- 
densed as  to  afford  the  means  of  social  intercourse,  without 
being  crowded,  so  as  to  create  difficulty  in  obtaining  the 
means  of  subsistence — in  which  every  family  that  chooses 
may  have  as  much  land  as  will  employ  its  own  hands,  while 
others  may  employ  their  industry  in  forming  such  products  as 
it  may  be  desirable  to  exchange  with  them.  Schools  are 
generally  established,  and  the  rudiments  of  education  univer- 
sally diffused.  Religion  is  taught,  and  every  village  has  its 
church,  neat,  though  humble,  lifting  its  spire  to  heaven. 
Here  is  a  situation  apparently  the  most  favorable  to  happiness. 
I  say  apparently,  for  the  greatest  source  of  human  misery  is 
not  in  external  circumstances,  but  in  men  themselves — in 
their,  depraved  inclinations,  their  wayward  passions  and  per- 
verse wills.  Here  is  room  for  all  the  petty  competition,  the 


22  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

envy,  haired,  malice  and  dissimulation,  that  torture  the  heart 
in  what  may  be  supposed  the  most  sophisticated  states  of 
society ;  and  though  less  marked  and  offensive,  there  may  be 
much  of  the  licentiousness. 

But  apart  from  this,  in  such  a  condition  of  society,  if  there 
is  little  suffering,  there  is  little  high  enjoyment.  The  even 
flow  of  life  forbids  the  high  excitement  which  is  necessary 
for  it.  If  there  is  little  vice,  there  is  little  place  for  the  emi- 
nent virtues,  which  employ  themselves  in  controlling  the  dis- 
orders and  remedying  the  evils  of  society,  which,  like  war  and 
revolution,  call  forth  the  highest  powers  of  man,  whether  for 
good  or  for  evil.  If  there  is  little  misery,  there  is  little  room 
for  benevolence.  Useful-  public  institutions  we  may  suppose 
to  be  created,  but  not  such  as  are  merely  ornamental.  Ele- 
gant arts  can  be  little  cultivated,  for  there  are  no  means  to 
reward  the  artists ;  nor  the  higher  literature,  for  no  one  will 
have  leisure  or  means  to  cultivate  it  for  its  own  sake.  Those 
•who  acquire  what  may  be  called  liberal  education,  will  do  so 
in  order  to  employ  it  as  the  means  of  their  own  subsistence 
or  advancement  in  a  profession,  and  literature  itself  will  par- 
take of  the  sordidness  of  trade.  In  short,  it  is  plain  that  in 
such  a  state*  of  society,  the  moral  and  intellectual  faculties 
cannot  be  cultivated  to  their  highest  perfection. 

But  whether  that  which  I  have  described  be  the  most  desi- 
rable state  of  society  or  no,  it  is  certain  that  it  cannot  conti- 
nue. Mutation  and  progress  is  the  condition  of  human  affairs. 
Though  retarded  for  a  time  by  extraneous  or  accidental  cir- 
cumstances, the  wheel  must  roll  on.  The  tendency  of  popu- 
lation is  to  become  crowded,  increasing  the  difficulty  of  obtain- 
ing subsistence.  There  will  be  some  without  any  property 
except  the  capacity  for  labor.  This  they  must  sell  to  those 
who  have  the  means  of  employing  them,  thereby  swelling 
the  amount  of  their  capital,  and  increasing  inequality.  The 


HARPER'S-  MEMOIR  ox  SLAVERY.  23 

process  still  goes  on.  The  number  of  laborers  increases  until 
tliere  is  a  difficulty  in  obtaining  employment.  Then  compe- 
tition is  established.  The  remuneration  of  the  laborer  be- 
comes gradually  less  and  less  ;  a  larger  and  larger  proportion 
of  the  product  of  his  labor  goes  to  swell  the  fortune  of  the 
capitalist ;  inequality  becomes  still  greater  and  more  invidious, 
until  the  process  ends  in  the  establishment  of  just  such  a  state 
of  things,  as  the  same  author  describes  as  now  existing  in 
England.  After  a  most  imposing  picture  of  her  greatness 
and  resources  ;  of  her  superabounding  capital,  and  all-perva- 
ding industry  and  enterprise ;  of  her  public  institutions  for 
purposes  of  art,  learning  and  .benevolence ;  her  public  im- 
provements, by  which  intercourse  is  facilitated,  and  the  conve- 
nience of  man  subserved ;  the  conveniences  and  luxuries  of 
life  enjoyed  by  those  who  are  in  possession  of  fortune,  or  have 
profitable  employments ;  of  all,  in  short,  that  places  her  at 
the  head  of  modern  civilization,  he  proceeds  to  give  ,the  re- 
verse of  the  picture.  And  here  I  shall  use'  his  own  words  : 
"  The  laboring  class  compose  the  bulk  of  the  people ;  the 
great  body  of  the  people  ;  the  vast  majority  of  the  people — 
these  are  the  terms  by  which  English  writers  and  speakers 
usually  describe  those  whose  only  property  is  their  labor." 

"  Of  comprehensive  words,  the  two  most  frequently  used  in 
English  politics,  are  distress  and  pauperism.  After  these,  of 
expressions  applied  to  the  state  of  the  poor,  the  most  common 
are  vice  and  misery,  wretchedness,  sufferings,  ignorance,  de- 
gradation^  discontent,  depravity,  drunkenness,  and  the  increase 
of  crime  ;  with  many  more  of  the  like  nature." 

He  goes  on  to  give  the  details  of  this  inequality  and 
wretchedness,,  in  terms  calculated  to  sicken  and  appal  one  to 
whom  the  picture  is  new.  That  he  has  painted  strongly  we 
may  suppose  ;  but  there  is  ample  corroborating  testimony,  if 
such  were  needed,  that  the  representation  is  substantially  just. 


24  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

Where  so  much  misery  exists,  there  must  of  course  be  much 
discontent,  and  many  have  been  disposed  to  trace  the  sources 
of  the  former  in  vicious  legislation,  or  the  structure  of  govern- 
ment ;  and  the  author  gives  the  various  schemes,  sometimes 
contradictory,  sometimes  ludicrous,  which  projectors  have 
devised  as  a  remedy  for  all  this  evil  to  which  flesh  is  heir. 
That  ill  judged  legislation  may  have  sometimes  aggravated 
the  general  suffering,  or  that  its  extremity  may  be  mitigated 
by  the  well  directed  efforts  of  the  wise  and  virtuous,  there 
can  be  no  doubt.  One  purpose  for  which  it  has  been  permit- 
ted to  exist  is,  that  it  may  call  forth  such  efforts,  and  awaken 
powers  and  virtues  which  would  otherwise  have  slumbered  for 
want  of  object.  But  remedy  there  is  none,  unless  it  be  to 
abandon  their  civilization.  This  inequality,  this  vice,  this 
misery,  this  Slavery,  is  the  price  of  England's  civilization. 
They  suffer  the  lot  of  humanity.  But  perhaps  we  may  be 
permitted  humbly  to  hope,  that  great,  intense  and  widely 
spread  as  this  misery  undoubtedly  is  in  reality,  it  may  yet  be 
less  so  than  in  appearance.  We  can  estimate  but  very,  very 
imperfectly  the  good  and  evil  of  individual  condition,  as  of 
different  states  of  society.  Some  unexpected  solace  arises  to 
alleviate  the  severest  calamity.  Wonderful  is  the  power  of 
custom,  in  making  the  hardest  condition  tolerable ;  the  most 
generally  wretched  life  has  circumstanqes  of  mitigation,  and 
moments  of  vivid  enjoyment,  of  which  the  more  seemingly 
happy  can  scarcely  conceive ;  though  the  lives  of  individuals 
be  shortened,  the  aggregate  of  existence  is  increased ;  even 
the  various  forms  of  death  accelerated  by  want,  familiarized 
to  the  contemplation,  like  death  to  the  soldier  on  the  field  of 
battle,  may  become  scarcely  more  formidable  than  what  we 
are  accustomed  to  regard  as  nature's  ordinary  outlets  of  exis- 
tence. If  we  could  perfectly  analyze  the  enjoyments  and  suf- 
ferings of  the  most  happy,  and  the  most  miserable  man,  we 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  25 

should  perhaps  be  startled  to  find  the  difference  so  much  less 
than  our  previous  impressions  "had  led  us  to  conceive.  But  it 
is  not  for  us  to  assume  the  province  of  omniscience.  The  par- 
ticular theory  of  the  author  quoted,  seems  to  be  founded  on 
an  assumption  of  this  sort — that  there  is  a  certain  stage  in 
the  progress,  when  there  is  a  certain  balance  between  the  de- 
mand for  labor,  and  the  supply  of  it,  which  is  more  desirable 
than  any  other — when  the  territory  is  so  thickly  peopled  that 
all  cannot  own  land  and  cultivate  the  soil  for  themselves,  but 
a  portion  will  be  compelled  to  sell  their  labor  to  others ;  still 
leaving,  however,  the  wages  of  labor  high,  and  the  laborer 
independent.  It  is  plain,  however,  that  this  would  in  like 
manner  partake  of  the  good  and  the  evil  of  other  states  of  so- 
ciety. There  would  be  less  of  equality  and  less  rudeness, 
than  in  the  early  stages ;  less  civilization,  and  less  suffering, 
than  in  the  latter. 

It  is  the  competition  for  employment,  which  is  the  source 
of  this  misery  of  society,  that  gives  rise  to  all  excellence  in 
art  and  knowledge.  When  the  demand  for  labor  exceeds  the 
supply,  the  services  of  the  most  ordinarily  qualified  laborer 
will  be  eagerly  retained.  When  the  supply  begins  to  exceed, 
and  competition  is  established,  higher  and  higher  qualifications 
will  be  required,  until  at  length  when  it  becomes  very  intense, 
none  but  the  most  consummately  skilful  can  be  sure  to  be  em- 
ployed. Nothing  but  necessity  can  drive  men  to  the  exer- 
tions which  are  necessary  so  to  qualify  themselves.  But  it  is 
not  in  arts,  merely  mechanical  alone,  that  this  superior  excel- 
lence will  be  required.  It  will  be  extended  to  every  intellec- 
tual employment ;  and  though  this  may  not  be  the  effect  in 
the  instance  of  every  individual,  yet  it  will  fix  the  habits  and 
character  of  the  society,  and  prescribe  every  where,  and  in 
every  department,  the  highest  possible  standard  of  attainment. 

But  how  is  it  that  the  existence  of  Slavery,  as  with  us,  will 
3 


26  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

retard  the  evils  of  civilization  ?  Very  obviously.  It  is  the 
intense  competition  of  civilized  life,  that  gives  rise  to  the 
excessive  cheapness  of  labor,  and  the  excessive  cheapness  of 
labor  is  the  cause  of  the  evils  in  question.  Slave  labor  can 
never  be  so  cheap  as  what  is  called  free  labor.  Political  econo- 
mists have  established  as  the  natural  standard  of  wages  in  a 
fully  peopled  country,  the  value  of  the  laborer's  existence.  I 
shall  not  stop  to  inquire  into  the  precise  truth  of  this  proposi- 
tion. It  certainly  approximates  the  truth.  Where  competi- 
tion is  intense,  men  will  labor  for  a  bare  subsistence,  and  less 
than  a  competent  subsistence.  The  employer  of  free  laborers 
obtains  their  services  during  the  time  of  their  health  and  vigor, 
without  the  charge  of  rearing  them  from  infancy,  or  support- 
ing them  in  sickness  or  old  age.  This  charge  is  imposed  on 
the  employer  of  slave  labor,  who,  therefore,  pays  higher  wa- 
ges, and  cuts  off  the  principal  source  of  misery — the  wants 
and  sufferings  of  infancy,  sickness,  and  old  age.  Laborers  too 
will  be  less  skilful,  and  perform  less  work — enhancing  the 
price  of  that  sort  of  labor.  The  poor  laws  of  England  are  an 
attempt — but  an  awkward  and  empirical  attempt — to  supply 
the  place  of  that  which  we  should  suppose  the  feelings  of  every 
human  heart  would  declare  to  be  a  natural  obligation — that 
he  who  has  received  the  benefit  of  the  laborer's  services  dur- 
ing his  health  and  vigor,  should  maintain  him  when  he  be- 
comes unable  to  provide  for  his  own  support.  They  answer 
their  purpose,  however,  very  imperfectly,  and  are  unjustly  and 
unequally  imposed.  There  is  no. attempt  to  apportion  the 
burden  according  to  the  benefit  received — and  perhaps  there 
could  be  none.  This  is  one  of  the  evils  of  their  condition. 

In  periods  of  commercial  revulsion  and  distress,  like  the 
present,  the  distress,  in  countries  of  free  labor,  falls  principally 
on  the  laborers.  In  those  of  slave  labor,  it  falls  almost  ex- 
clusively on  the  employer.  In  the  former,  when  a  business 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  27 

becomes  unprofitable,  the  employer  dismisses  bis  laborers  or 
lowers  their  wages.  But  with  us,  it  is  the  very  period  at 
•which  we  are  least  able  to  dismiss  our  laborers ;  and  if  we 
would  not  suffer  a  further  loss,  we  cannot  reduce  their  wages. 
To  receive  the  benefit  of  the  services  of  which  they  are  capa- 
ble, we  must  provide  for  maintaining  their  health  and  vigor. 
In  point  of  fact,  we  know  that  this  is  accounted  among  the  ne- 
cessary expenses  of  management.  If  the  income  of  every 
planter  of  the  Southern  States  were  permanently  reduced  one- 
half,  or  even  much  more  than  that,  it  would  not  take  one  jot 
from  the  support  and  comforts  of  the  slaves.  And  this  can 
never  be  materially  altered,  until  they  shall  become  so  unpro- 
fitable that  Slavery  must  be  of  necessity  abandoned.  It  is 
probable  that  the  accumulation  of  individual  wealth  will  never 
be  carried  to  quite  so  great  an  extent  in  a  slaveholdiug  coun- 
try, as  in  one  of  free  labor;  but  a  consequence  will  be,  that 
there  will  be  less  inequality  and  less  suffering. 

Servitude  is  the  condition  of  civilization.  It  was  decreed, 
when  the  command  was  given,  "  be  fruitful,  and  multiply  and 
replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue  it,"  and  when  it  was  added, 
"in  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread."  And  what 
human  being  shall  arrogate  to  himself  the  authority  to  pro- 
nounce that  our  form  of  it  is  worse  in  itself,  or  more  displeas- 
ing to  God,  than  that  which  exists  elsewhere  ?  Shall  it  be 
said  that  the  servitude  of  other  countries  grows  out  of  the  exi- 
gency of  their  circumstances,  and  therefore  society  is  not  re- 
sponsible for  it  ?  But  if  we  know  that  in  the  progress  of 
things  it  is  to  come,  would  it  not  seem  the  part  of  wisdom 
and  foresight,  to  make  provision  for  it,  and  thereby,  if  we  can, 
mitigate  the  severity  of  its  evils  ?  But  the  fact  is  not  so.  Let 
any  one  who  doubts,  read  the  book  to  which  I  have  several 
times  referred,  and  he  may  be  satisfied  that  it  was  forced  upon 
us  by  the  extremest  exigency  of  circumstances,  in  a  struggle 


28  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

for  very  existence.  Without  it,  it  is  doubtful  whether  a  white 
man  would  be  now  existing  on  this  continent — certain,  that 
if  there  were,  they  would  be  in  a  state  of  the  utmost  destitu- 
tion, weakness,  and  misery.  It  was  forced  on  us  by  necessity, 
and  further  fastened  upon  us  by  the  superior  authority  of  the 
mother  country.  I,  for  one,  neither  deprecate  nor  resent  the 
gift.  Nor  did  we  institute  Slavery.  The  Africans  brought  to 
us  had  been,  speaking  in  the  general,  slaves  in  their  own 
country,  and  only  underwent  a  change  of  masters.  In  the 
countries  of  Europe,  and  the  States  of  our  Confederacy,  in 
which  Slavery  has  ceased  to  exist,  it  was  abolished  by  positive 
legislation.  If  the  order  of  nature  has  been  departed  from, 
and  a  forced  and  artificial  state  of  things  introduced,  it  has 
been,  as  the  experience  of  all  the  world  declares,  by  them  and 
not  by  us. 

That  there  are  great  evils  in  a  society  where  Slavery  exists, 
and  that  the  institution  is  liable  to  great  abuse,  I  have  already 
said.  To  say  otherwise,  would  be  to  say  that  they  were  not 
human.  But  the  whole  of  human  life  is  a  system  of  evils  and 
compensations.  We  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  com- 
pensations with  us  are  fewer,  or  smaller  in  proportion  to  the 
evils,  than  those  of  any  other  condition  of  society.  Tell  me 
of  an  evil  or  abuse  ;  of  an  instance  of  cruelty,  oppression,  licen- 
tiousness, crime  or  suffering,  and  I  will  point  out,  and  often  in 
five  fold  degree,  an  equivalent  evil  or  abuse  in  countries  where 
Slavery  does  not  exist. 

Let  us  examine  without  blenching,  the  actual  and  alleged 
evils  of  Slavery,  and  the  array  of  horrors  which  many  suppose 
to  be  its  universal  concomitants.  It  is  said  that  the  slave  is 
out  of  the  protection  of  the  law;  that  if  the  law  purports  to 
protect  him  in  life  and  limb,  it  is  but  imperfectly  executed ; 
that  he  is  still  subject  to  excessive  labor,  degrading  blows,  or 
any  other  sort  of  torture,  which  a  master  pampered  and  bru- 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  29 

talized  by  the  exercise  of  arbitrary  power,  may  think  proper 
to  inflict;  he  is  cut  off  from  the  opportunity  of  intellectual, 
moral,  or  religious  improvement,  and  even  positive  enactments 
are  directed  against  his  acquiring  the  rudiments  of  knowl- 
edge ;  he  is  cut  off  forever  from  the  hope  of  raising  his  condi- 
tion in  society,  whatever  may  be  his  merit,  talents,  or  virtues, 
and  therefore  deprived  of  the  strongest  incentive  to  useful  and 
praiseworthy  exertion ;  his  physical  degradation  begets  a  cor- 
responding moral  degradation  :  he  is  without  moral  principle, 
and  addicted  to  the  lowest  vices,  particularly  theft  and  false- 
hood ;  if  marriage  be  not  disallowed,  it  is  little  better  than  a 
state  of  concubinage,  from  which  results  general  licentiousness, 
and  the  want  of  chastity  among  females — this  indeed  is  not 
protected  by  law,  but  is  subject  to  the  outrages  of  brutal  lust ; 
both  sexes  are  liable  to  have  their  dearest  affections  violated; 
to  be  sold  like  brutes;  husbands  to  be  torn  from  wives,  chil- 
dren from  parents  ; — this  is  the  picture  commonly  presented 
by  the  denouncers  of  Slavery. 

It  is  a  somewhat  singular  fact  that  when  there  existed  in 
our  State  no  law  for  punishing  the  murder  of  a  slave,  other 
than  a  pecuniary  fine,  there  were,  I  will  venture  to  say,  at 
least  ten  murders  of  freemen,  for  one  murder  of  a  slave.  Yet 
it  is  supposed  they  are  less  protected,  or  less  secure  than  their 
masters.  Why  they  are  protected  by  their  very  situation  in 
society,  and  therefore  less  need  the  protection  of  law.  With 
any  other  person  than  their  master,  it  is  hardly  possible  for 
them  to  come  into  such  sort  of  collision  as  usually  gives  rise 
to  furious  and  revengeful  passions  ;  they  offer  no  temptation 
to  the  murderer  for  gain  ;  against  the  master  himself,  they 
have  the  security  of  his  own  interest,  and  by  his  superintend- 
ence and  authority,  they  are  protected  from  the  revengeful 
passions  of  each  other.  I  am  by  no  means  sure  that  the  cause 
of  humanity  has  been  served  by  the  change  in  jurisprudence, 
3* 


30  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

which  has  placed  their  murder  on  the  same  footing  with  that 
of  a  freemen.  The  change  was  made  in  subserviency  to  the 
opinions  and.clamor  of  others  who  were  utterly  incompetent 
to  form  an  opinion  on  the  subject ;  and  a  wise  act  is  seldom 
the  result  of  legislation  in  this  spirit.  From  the  fact  which  I 
have  stated,  it  is  plain  that  they  less  need  protection.  Juries 
are,  therefore,  less  willing  to  convict,  and  it  may  sometimes 
happen  that  the  guilty  will  escape  all  punishment.  Security 
is  one  of  the  compensations  of  their  humble  position.  We 
challenge  the  comparison,  that  with  us  there  have  been  fewer 
murders  of  slaves,  than  of  parents,  children,  apprentices,  and 
other  murders,  cruel  and  unnatural,  in  society  where  slavery 
does  not  exist. 

But  short  of  life  or  limb,  various  cruelties  may  be  practised 
as  the  passions  of  the  master  may  dictate.  To  this  the  same 
reply  has  been  often  given — that  they  are  secured  by  the  mas- 
ter's interest.  If  the  state  of  Slavery  is  to  exist  at  all,  the 
master  must  have,  and  ought  to  have,  such  power  of  punish- 
ment as  will  compel  them  to  perform  the  duties  of  their  sta- 
tion. And  is  not  this  for  their  advantage  as  well  as  his?  No 
human  being  can  be  contented,  who  does  not  perform  the 
duties  of  his  station.  Has  the  master  any  temptation  to  go 
beyond  this?  If  he  inflicts  on  him  such  punishment  as  will 
permanently  impair  his  strength,  he  inflicts  a  loss  on  himself, 
and  so  if  he  requires  of  him  excessive  labor.  Compare  the 
labor  required  of  the  slave,  with  those  of  the  free  agricultural 
or  manufacturing  laborer  in  Europe,  or  even  in  the  more 
thickly  peopled  portions  of  the  non-slaveholding  States  of  our 
Confederacy — though  these  last  are  no  fair  subjects  of  com- 
parison— they  enjoying,  as  I  have  said,  in  a  great  degree,  the 
advantages  of  Slavery  along  with  those  of  an  early  and  sim- 
ple state  of  society.  Read  the  English  Parliamentary  reports, 
on  the  condition  of  the  manufacturing  operatives,  and  the 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  31 

children  employed  in  factories.  And  such  is  the  impotence 
of  man  to  remedy  the  evils  which  the  condition  of  his  exist- 
ence has  imposed  on  him,  that  it  is  much  to  be  doubted 
whether  the  attempts  by  legislation  to  improve  their  situa- 
tion, will  not  aggravate  its  evils.  They  resort  to  this  exces- 
sive labor  as  a  choice  of  evils.  If  so,  the  amount  of  their 
compensation  will  be  lessened  also  with  the  diminished 
labor ;  for  this  is  a  matter  which  legislation  cannot  regulate. 
Is  it  the  part  of  benevolence  then  to  cut  them  off  even  from 
this  miserable  liberty  of  choice  ?  Yet  would  these  evils 
exist  in  the  same  degree,  if  the  laborers  were  the  pro- 
perty of  the  master — having  a  direct  interest  in  preserving 
their  lives,  their  health  and  strength  ?  Who  but  a  drivelling 
fanatic  has  thought  of  the  necessity  of  protecting  domestic 
animals  from  the  cruelty  of  their  owners  ?  And  yet  are  not 
great  and  wanton  cruelties  practised  on  these  animals  ?  Com- 
pare the  whole  of  the  cruelties  inflicted  on  slaves  throughout 
our  Southern  country,  with  those  elsewhere,  inflicted  by  igno- 
rant and  depraved  portions  of  the  community,  on  those  whom 
the  relations  of  society  put  into  their  power — of  brutal  hus- 
bands on  their  wives  ;  of  brutal  parents — subdued  against  the 
strongest  instincts  of  nature  to  that  brutality  by  the  extremi- 
ty of  their  misery — on  their  children  ;  of  brutal  masters  on 
apprentices.  And  if  it  should  be  asked,  are  not  similar  cruel- 
ties inflicted,  and  miseries  endured,  in  your  society  ?  I  answer, 
in  no  comparable  degree.  The  class  in  question  are  placed 
under  the  control  of  others,  who  are  interested  to  restrain 
their  excesses  of  cruelty  or  rage.  Wives  are  protected  from 
their  husbands,  and  children  from  their  parents.  And  this  is 
no  inconsiderable  compensation  of  the  evils  of  our  system ; 
and  would  so  appear,  if  we  could  form  any  conception  of  the 
immense  amount  of  misery  which  is  elsewhere  thus  inflicted. 
The  other  class  of  society,  more  elevated  in  their  position,  are 


32  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

also  (speaking  of  course  in  the  general)  more  elevated  in  cha- 
racter, and  more  responsible  to  public  opinion. 

But  besides  the  interest  of  their  master,  there  is  another 
security  against  cruelty.  The  relation  of  master  and  slave, 
when  there  is  no  mischievous  interference  between  them,  is,  as 
the  experience  of  all  the  world  declares,  naturally  one  of  kind- 
ness. As  to  the  fact,  we  should  be  held  interested  witnesses, 
but  we  appeal  to  universal  nature.  Is  it  not  natural  that  a 
man  should  be  attached  to  that  which  is  his  own,  and  which 
has  contributed  to  his  convenience,  his  enjoyment,  or  his  vani- 
ty ?  This  is  felt  even  towards  animals  and  inanimate  objects. 
How  much  more  towards  a  being  of  superior  intelligence  and 
usefulness,  who  can  appreciate  our  feelings  towards  him,  and 
return  them  ?  Is  it  not  natural  that  we  should  be  interested 
in  that  which  is  dependent  on  us  for  protection  and  support  ? 
Do  not  men  everywhere  contract  kind  feelings  towards  their 
dependants  ?  Is  it  not  natural  that  men  should  be  more  at- 
tached to  those  whom  they  have  long  known — whom,  perhaps, 
they  have  reared  or  been  associated  with  from  infancy — than  to 
one  with  whom  their  connexion  has  been  casual  and  tempo- 
rary ?  What  is  there  in  our  atmosphere  or  institutions,  to 
produce  a  perversion  of  the  general  feelings  of  nature  ?  To 
be  sure,  in  this  as  in  all  other  relations,  there  is  frequent  cause 
of  offence  or  excitement — on  one  side,  for  some  omission  of 
duty,  on  the  other,  on  account  of  reproof  or  punishment  in- 
flicted. But  this  is  common  to  the  relation  of  parent  and 
child  ;  and  I  will  venture  to  say,  that  if  punishment  be  justly 
inflicted — and  there  is  no  temptation  to  inflict  it  unjustly — it 
is  as  little  likely  to  occasion  permanent  estrangement  or  re- 
sentment as  in  that  case.  Slaves  are  perpetual  children.  It 
is  not  the  common  nature  of  man,  unless  it  be  depraved  by 
his  own  misery,  to  delight  in  witnessing  pain.  It  is  more 
grateful  to  behold  contented  and  cheerful  beings,  than  sullen 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  33 

and  wretched  ones.  That  men  are  sometimes  wayward,  de- 
praved and  brutal,  we  know.  That  atrocious  and  brutal  cru- 
elties have  been  perpetrated  on  slaves,  and  on  those  who  were 
not  slaves,  by  such  wretches,  we  also  know.  But  that  the 
institution  of  Slavery  has  a  natural  tendency  to  form  such  a 
character,  that  such  crimes  are  more  common,  or  more  aggra- 
vated than  in  other  states  of  society,  or  produce  among  us 
less  surprise  and  horror,  we  utterly  deny,  and  challenge  the 
comparison.  Indeed,  I  have  little  hesitation  in  saying,  that 
if  full  evidence  could  be  obtained,  the  comparison  would  re- 
sult in  our  favor,  and  that  the  tendency  of  Slavery  is  rather 
to  humanize  than  to  brutalize. 

The  accounts  of  travellers  in  oriental  countries,  give  a  very 
favorable  representation  of  the  kindly  relations  which  exist 
between  the  master  and  slave ;  the  latter  being  often  the 
friend,  and  sometimes  the  heir  of  the  former.  Generally,  how- 
ever, especially  if  they  be  English  travellers — if  they  say  any 
thing  which  may  seem  to  give  a  favorable  complexion  to  Sla- 
very, they  think  it  necessary  to  enter  their  protest,  that  they 
shall  not  be  taken  to  give  any  sanction  to  Slavery  as  it  exists 
in  America.  Yet  human  nature  is  the  same  in  all  countries. 
There  are  very  obvious  reasons  why  in  those  countries  there 
should  be  a  nearer  approach  to  equality  in  their  manners. 
The  master  and  slave  are  often  of  cognate  races,  and  therefore 
tend  more  to  assimilate.  There  is,  in  fact,  less  inequality  in 
mind  and  character,  where  the  master  is  but  imperfectly  civil- 
ized. Less  labor  is  exacted,  because  the  master  has  fewer 
motives  to  accumulate.  But  is  it  an  injury  to  a  human  be- 
ing, that  regular,  if  not  excessive  labor,  should  be  required  of 
him  ?  The  primeval  curse,  with  the  usual  benignity  of  provi- 
dential contrivance,  has  been  turned  into  the  solace  of  an  ex- 
istence that  would  be  much  more  intolerable  without  it.  If 
they  labor  less,  they  are  much  more  subject  to  the  outrages  of 


34  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

capricious  passion.  If  it  were  put  to  the  choice  of  any  human 
being,  would  he  prefer  to  be  the  slave  of  a  civilized  man,  or 
of  a  barbarian  or  semi-barbarian  ?  But  if  the  general  tenden- 
cy of  the  institution  in  those  countries  is  to  create  kindly  rela- 
tions, can  it  be  imagined  why  it  should  operate  differently  in 
this  ?  It  is  true,  as  suggested  by  President  Dew — with  the 
exception  of  the  ties  of  close  consanguinity,  it  forms  one  of  the 
most  intimate  relations  of  society.  And  it  will  be  more  and 
more  so,  the  longer  it  continues  to  exist.  The  harshest  fea- 
tures of  Slavery  were  created  by  those  who  were  strangers  to 
Slavery — who  supposed  that  it  consisted  in  keeping  savages  in 
subjection  by  violence  and  terror.  The  severest  laws  to  be 
found  on  our  statute  book,  were  enacted  by  such,  and  such  are 
still  found  to  be  the  severest  masters.  As  society  becomes 
settled,  and  the  wandering  habits  of  our  countrymen  altered, 
there  will  be  a  larger  and  larger  proportion  of  those  who  were 
reared  by  the  owner,  or  derived  to  him  from  his  ancestors, 
and  who  therefore  will  be  more  and  more  intimately  regard- 
ed, as  forming  a  portion  of  his  family. 

It  is  true  that  the  slave  is  driven  to  labor  by  stripes  ;  and  if 
the  object  of  punishment  be  to  produce  obedience  or  reforma- 
tion, with  the  least  permanent  injury,  it  is  the  best  method  of 
punishment.  But  is  it  not  intolerable,  that  a  being  formed  in 
the  image  of  his  Maker,  should  be  degraded  by  blows  ?  This 
is  one  of  the  perversions  of  mind  and  feeling,  to  which  I  shall 
have  occasion  again  to  refer.  Such  punishment  would  be  de- 
grading to  a  freeman,  who  had  the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of 
a  freeman.  In  general,  it  is  not  degrading  to  a  slave,  nor  is 
it  felt  to  be  so.  The  evil  is  the  bodily  pain.  Is  it  degrading 
to  a  child  ?  Or  if  in  any  particular  instance  it  would  be  so 
felt,  it  is  sure  not  to  be  inflicted — unless  in  those  rare  cases 
which  constitute  the  startling  and  eccentric  evils,  from  which 
no  society  is  exempt,  and  against  which  no  institutions  of  so- 
ciety can  provide. 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  35 

The  slave  is  cut  of  from  the  means  of  intellectual,  moral, 
and  religious  improvement,  and  in  consequence  his  moral  cha- 
racter becomes  depraved,  and  he  addicted  to  degrading  vices. 
The  slave  receives  such  instruction  as  qualifies  him  to  dis- 
charge the  duties  of  his  particular  station.  The  Creator  did 
not  intend  that  every  individual  human  being  should  be  high- 
ly cultivated,  morally  and  intellectually,  for,  as  we  have  seen, 
he  has  imposed  conditions  on  society  which  would  render  this 
impossible.  There  must  be  general  mediocrity,  or  the  high- 
est cultivation  must  exist  along  with  ignorance,  vice,  and  de- 
gradation. But  is  there  in  the  aggregate  of  society,  less  op- 
portunity for  intellectual  and  moral  cultivation,  on  account  of 
the  existence  of  Slavery  ?  We  must  estimate  institutions  from 
their  aggregate  of  good  or  evil.  I  refer  to  the  views  which  I 
have  before  expressed  to  this  society.  It  is  by  the  existence 
of  Slavery,  exempting  so  large  a  portion  of  our  citizens  from 
the  necessity  of  bodily  labor,  that  we  have  a  greater  propor- 
tion than  any  other  people,  who  have  leisure  for  intellectual 
pursuits,  and  the  means-  of  attaining  a  liberal  education.  If 
we  throw  away  this  opportunity,  we  shall  be  morally  respon- 
sible for  the  neglect  or  abuse  of  our  advantages,  and  shall 
most  unquestionably  pay  the  penalty.  "  But  the  blame  will 
rest  on  ourselves,  and  not  on  the  character  of  our  institu- 
tions. 

I  add  further,  notwithstanding  that  equality  seems  to  be 
the  passion  of  the  day,  if,  as  Providence  has  evidently  decreed, 
there  can  be  but  a  certain  portion  of  intellectual  excellence  in 
any  community,  it  is  better  that  it  should  be  unequally  divi- 
ded. It  is  better  that  a  part  should  be  fully  and  highly  culti- 
vated, and  the  rest  utterly  ignorant.  To  constitute  a  society, 
a  variety  of  offices  must  be  discharged,  from  those  requiring 
but  the  lowest  degree  of  intellectual  power,  to  those  requiring 
the  very  highest,  and  it  should  seem  that  the  endowments 


36  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

ought  to  be  apportioned  according  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
situation.  In  the  course  of  human  affairs,  there  arise  difficul- 
ties which  can  only  be  comprehended  or  surmounted  by  the 
strongest  native  power  of  intellect,  strengthened  by  the  most 
assiduous  exercise,  and  enriched  with  the  most  extended 
knowledge — and  even  these  are  sometimes  found  indequate 
to  the  exigency.  The  first  want  of  society  is — leaders.  Who 
shall  estimate  the  value  to  Athens,  of  Solon,  Aristides,  The- 
mistocles,  Cymon,  or  Pericles  ?  If  society  have  not  leaders 
qualified,  as  I  have  said,  they  will  have  those  who  will  lead 
them  blindly  to  their  loss  and  ruin.  Men  of  no  great  native 
power  of  intellect,  and  of  imperfect  and  superficial  knowledge, 
are  the  most  mischievous  of  all — none  are  so  busy,  meddling, 
confident,  presumptuous,  and  intolerant.  The  whole  of  society 
receives  the  benefit  of  the  exertions  of  a  mind  of  extraordina- 
ry endowments.  Of  all  communities,  one  of  the  least  desira- 
ble, would  be  that  in  which  imperfect,  superficial,  half-educa- 
tion should  be  universal.  The  first  care  of  a  state  which  re- 
gards its  own  safety,  prosperity  and  honor,  should  be,  that 
when  minds  of  extraordinary  power  appear,  to  whatever  de- 
partment of  knowledge,  art  or  science,  their  exertions  may  be 
directed,  the  means  should  be  provided  of  their  most  consum- 
mate cultivation.  Next  to  this,  that  education  should  be  as 
widely  extended  as  possible. 

Odium  has  been  cast  upon  our  legislation,  on  account  of  its 
forbidding  the  elements  of  education  to  be  communicated  to 
slaves.  But,  in  truth,  what  injury  is  done  to  them  by  this  ? 
He  who  works  during  the  day  with  his  hands,  does  not  read 
in  intervals  of  leisure  for  his  amusement,  or  the  improvement 
of  his  mind — or  the  exceptions  are  so  very  rare,  as  scarcely  to 
need  the  being  provided  for.  Of  the  many  slaves  whom  I 
have  known  capable  of  reading,  I  have  never  known  one  to 
read  any  thing  but  the  Bible,  and  this  task  they  impose  on 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  37 

themselves  as  matter  of  duty.  Of  all  methods  of  religious  in- 
struction, however,  this,  of  reading  for  themselves,  would  be 
the  most  inefficient — their  comprehension  is  defective,  and 
the  employment  is  to  them  an  unusual  and  laborious  one. 
There  are  but  very  few  who  do  not  enjoy  other  means  more 
effectual  for  religious  instruction.  There  is  no  place  of  wor- 
ship opened  for  the  white  population,  from  which  they  are 
excluded.  I  believe  it  a  mistake,  to  say  that  the  instructions 
there  given  are  not  adapted  to  their  comprehension,  or  calcu- 
lated to  improve  them.  If  they  are  given  as  they  ought  to 
be — practically,  and  without  pretension,  and  are  such  as  are 
generally  intelligible  to  the  free  part  of  the  audience,  compre- 
hending all  grades  of  intellectual  capacity, — they  will  not  bo 
unintelligible  to  slaves.  I  doubt  whether  this  be  not  better 
than  instruction,  addressed  specially  to  themselves — which 
they  might  look  upon  as  a  device  of  the  master's,  to  make 
them  more  obedient  and  profitable  to  himself.  Their  minds, 
generally,  show  a  strong  religious  tendency,  and  they  are  fond 
of  assuming  the  office  of  religious  instructors  to  each  other ; 
and  perhaps  their  religious  notions  are  not  much  more  ex- 
travagant than  those  of  a  large  portion  of  the  free  population 
of  our  country.  I  am  not  sure  that  there  is  a  much  smaller 
proportion  of  them,  than  of  the  free  population,  who  make 
some  sort  of  religious  profession.  It  is  certainly  the  master's 
interest  that  they  should  have  proper  religious  sentiments, 
and  if  he  fails  in  his  duty  towards  them,  we  may  be  sure  that 
the  consequences  will  be  visited  not  upon  them,  but  upon 
him. 

If  there  were  any  chance  of  their  elevating  their  rank  and 
condition  in  society,  it  might  be  matter  of  hardship,  that  they 
should  be  debarred  those  rudiments  of  knowledge  which  open 
the  way  to  further  attainments.  But  this  they  know  cannot 
be,  and  that  further  attainments  would  be  useless  to  them. 
4 


38  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

Of  the  evil  of  this,  I  shall  speak  hereafter.  A  knowledge  of 
reading,  writing,  and  the  elements  of  arithmetic,  is  conveni- 
ent and  important  to  the  free  laborer,  who  is  the  transactor 
of  his  own  affairs,  and  the  guardian  of  his  own  interests — but 
of  what  use  would  they  be  to  the  slave  ?  These  alone  do  not 
elevate  the  mind  or  character,  if  such  elevation  were  desirable. 
If  we  estimate  their  morals  according  to  that  which  should 
be  the  standard  of  a  free  man's  morality,  then  I  grant  they 
are  degraded  in  morals — though  by  no  means  to  the  extent 
•which  those  who  are  unacquainted  with  the  institution  seem 
to  suppose.  We  justly  suppose,  that  the  Creator  will  require 
of  man  the  performance  of  the  duties  of  the  station  in  which 
his  providence  has  placed  him,  and  the  cultivation  of  the  vir- 
tues which  are  adapted  to  their  performance ;  that  he  will 
make  allowance  for  all  imperfection  of  knowledge,  and  the 
absence  of  the  usual  helps  and  motives  which  lead  to  self- 
correction  and  improvement.  The  degradation  of  morals  re- 
late principally  to  loose  notions  of  honesty,  leading  to  petty 
thefts ;  to  falsehood  and  to  licentious  intercourse  between  the 
sexes.  Though  with  respect  even  to  these,  I  protest  against 
the  opinion  which  seems  to  be  elsewhere  entertained,  that  they 
are  universal,  or  that  slaves,  in  respect  to  them,  might  not 
well  bear  a  comparison  with  the  lowest  laborious  class  of  other 
countries.  But  certainly  there  is  much  dishonesty  leading  to 
petty  thefts.  It  leads,  however,  to  nothing  else.  They  have 
no  contracts  or  dealings  which  might  be  a  temptation  to 
fraud,  nor  do  I  know  that  their  characters  have  any  tendency 
that  way.  They  are  restrained  by  the  constant,  vigilant,  and 
interested  superintendence  which  is  exercised  over  them,  from 
the  commission  of  offences  of  greater  magnitude — even  if  they 
were  disposed  to  them — which  I  am  satisfied  they  are  not. 
Nothing  is  so  rarely  heard  of,  as  an  atrocious  crime  commit- 
ted by  a  slave  ;  especially  since  they  have  worn  off  the  savage 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  39 

character  which  their  progenitors  brought  with  them  from 
Africa.  Their  offences  are  confined  to  petty  depredations, 
principally  for  the  gratification  of  their  appetites,  and  these 
for  reasons  already  given,  are  chiefly  confined  to  the  property 
of  their  owner,  which  is  most  exposed  to  them.  They  could 
make  no  use  of  a  considerable  booty,  if  they  should  obtain  it. 
It  is  plain  that  this  is  a  less  evil  to  society  in  its  consequences 
and  example,  than  if  committed  by  a  freeman,  who  is  master 
of  his  own  time  and  actions.  With  reference  to  society  then, 
the  offence  is  less  in  itself — and  may  we  not  hope  that  it  is 
less  in  the  sight  of  God  ?  A  slave  has  no  hope  that  by  a 
course  of  integrity,  he  can  materially  elevate  his  condition  in. 
society,  nor  can  his  offence  materially  depress  it,  or  affect  his 
means  of  support,  or  that  of  his  family.  Compared  to  the 
freeman,  he  has  no  character  to  establish  or  to  lose.  He  has 
not  been  exercised  to  self-government,  and  being  without  in- 
tellectual resources,  can  less  resist  the  solicitations  of  appetite. 
Theft  in  a  freeman  is  a  crime  ;  in  a  slave,  it  is  a  vice.  I  re- 
collect to  have  heard  it  said,  in  reference  to  some  question  of 
a  slave's  theft  which  was  agitated  in  a  Court,  "  Courts  of  Jus- 
tice have  no  more  to  do  with  a  slave's  stealing,  than  with  his 
lying — that  is  a  matter  for  the  domestic  forum."  It  was  truly 
said — the  theft  of  a  siave  is  no  offence  against  society.  Com- 
pare all  the  evils  resulting  from  this,  with  the  enormous 
amount  of  vice,  crime,  and  depravity,  which  in  an  European, 
or  one  of  our  Northern  cities,  disgusts  the  moral  feelings,  and 
render  life  and  .property  insecure.  So  with  respect  to  his 
falsehood.  I  have  never  heard  or  observed,  that  slaves  have 
any  peculiar  proclivity  to  falsehood,  unless  it  be  in  denying  or 
concealing  their  own  offences,  or  those  of  their  fellows.  I  have 
never  heard  of  falsehood  told  by  a  slave  for  a  malicious  pur- 
pose. Lies  of  vanity  are  sometimes  told,  as  among  the  weak 
and  ignorant  of  other  conditions.  Falsehood  is  not  attributed 


40  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ox  SLAVERY. 

to  an  individual  charged  with,  an  offence  before  a  Court  of 
Justice,  who  pleads  not  guilty — and  certainly  the  strong  temp- 
tation to  escape  punishment,  in  the  highest  degree  extenuates, 
if  it  does  not  excuse,  falsehood  told  by  a  slave.  If  the  object 
be  to  screen  a  fellow  slave,  the  act  bears  some  semblance  of 
fidelity,  and  perhaps  truth  could  not  be  told  without  breach 
of  confidence.  I  know  not  how  to  characterize  the  falsehood 
of  a  slave. 

It  has  often  been  said  by  the  denouncers  of  Slavery,  that 
marriage  does  not  exist  among  slaves.  It  is  difficult  to  un- 
derstand this,  unless  wilful  falsehood  were  intended.  We 
know  that  marriages  are  contracted  ;  may  be,  and  often  are, 
solemnized  with  the  forms  usual  among  other  classes  of  socie- 
ty, and  "often  faithfully  adhered  to  during  life.  The  law  has 
not  provided  for  making  those  marriages  indissoluble,  nor 
could  it  do  so.  If  a  man  abandons  his  wife,  being  without 
property,  and  being  both  property  themselves,  he  cannot  be 
required  to  maintain  her.  If  he  abandons  his  wife,  and  lives 
in  a  state  of  concubinage  with  another,  the  law  cannot  punish 
him  for  bigamy.  It  may  perhaps  be  meant  that  the  chastity 
of  wives  is  not  protected  by  law  from  the  outrages  of  violence- 
I  answer,  as  with  respect  to  their  lives,  that  they  are  protect- 
ed by  manners,  and  their  position.  Who  ever  heard  of  such 
outrages  being  offered  I  At  least  as  seldom,  I  will  venture  to 
say,  as  in  other  communities  of  different  forms  of  polity.  One 
reason  doubtless  may  be,  that  often  there  is  no  disposition  to 
resist.  Another  reason  also  may  be,  that  there  is  little  temp- 
tation to  such  violence,  as  there  is  so  large  a  proportion  of 
this  class  of  females  who  set  little  value  on  chastity,  and  af- 
ford easy  gratification  to  the  hot  passions  of  men.  It  might 
be  supposed,  from  the  representations  of  some  writers,  that  a 
slaveholding  country  was  one  wide  stew  for  the  indulgence  of 
unbridled  lust.  Particular  instances  of  intemperate  and 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  41 

shameless  debauchery  are  related,  which  may  perhaps  be 
true,  and  it  is  left  to  be  inferred  that  this  is  the  universal  state 
of  manners.  Brutes  and  shameless  debauchees  there  are  in 
every  country  ;  we  know  that  if  such  things  are  related  as 
general  or  characteristic,  the  representation  is  false.  Who 
would  argue  from  the  existence  of  a  Col.  Chartres  in  England, 
or  of  some  individuals  who  might,  perhaps,  be  named  in  other 
portions  of  this  country,  of  the  horrid  dissoluteness  of  man- 
ners occasioned  by  the  want  of  the  institution  of  Slavery  ?  Yet 
the  argument  might  be  urged  quite  as  fairly,  and  really  it 
seems  to  me  with  a  little  more  justice — for  there  such  depra- 
vity is  attended  with  much,  more  pernicious  consequences. 
Yet  let  us  not  deny  or  extenuate  the  truth.  It  is  true  that  in  . 
this  respect  the  morals  of  this  class  are  very  loose,  (by  no 
means  so  universally  so  as  is  often  supposed,)  and  that  the 
passions  of  men  of  the  superior  caste,  tempt  and  find  gratifi- 
cation in  the  easy  chastity  of  the  females.  This  is  evil,  and  to 
be  remedied,  if  we  can  do  so,  without  the  introduction  of 
greater  evil.  But  evil  is  incident  to  every  condition  of  socie- 
ty, and  as  I  have  said,  we  have  only  to  consider  in  which  in- 
stitution it  most  predominates. 

Compare  these  prostitutes  of  our  country,  (if  it  is  not  in- 
justice to  call  them  so,)  and  their  condition  with  those  of 
other  countries — the  seventy  thousand  prostitutes  of  London, 
or  of  Paris,  or  the  ten  thousand  of  New- York,  or  our  other 
Northern  cities.  Take  the  picture  given  of  the  first  from  the 
author  whom  I  have  before  quoted.  "  The  laws  and  customs 
of  England  conspire  to  sink  this  class  of  English  women  into 
a  state  of  vice  and  misery  below  that  which  necessarily  be- 
longs to  their  condition.  Hence  their  extreme  degradation ^ 
their  troopers'  oaths,  their  love  of  gin,  their  desperate  reck- 
lessness, and  the  shortness  of  their  miserable  lives." 

"  English  women  of  this  class,  or  rather  girls,  for  few  of 


42  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

them  live  to  be  women,  die  like  sheep  with  the  rot ;  so  fast 
that  soon  there  would  be  none  left,  if  a  fresh  supply  were  not 
obtained  equal  to  the  number  of  deaths.  But  a  fresh  supply 
is  always  obtained  without  the  least  trouble  ;  seduction  easily 
keeps  pace  with  prostitution  or  mortality.  Those  that  die  are, 
like  factory  children  that  die,  instantly  succeeded  by  new  com- 
petitors for  misery  and  death."  There  is  no  hour  of  a  sum- 
mer's or  a  winter's  night,  in  which  there  may  not  be  found  in 
the  streets  a  ghastly  wretch,  expiring  under  the  double  tor- 
tures of  disease  and  famine.  Though  less  aggravated  in  its 
features,  the  picture  of  prostitution  in  New- York  or  Philadel- 
phia would  be  of  like  character. 

In  such  communities,  the  unmarried  woman  who  becomes 
a  mother,  is  an  outcast  from  society — and  though  sentimen- 
talists lament  the  hardship  of  the  case,  it  is  justly  and  neces- 
sarily so.  She  is  cut  off  from  the  hope  of  iiseful  and  profita- 
ble employment,  and  driven  by  necessity  to  further  vice.  Her 
misery,  and  the  hopelessness  of  retrieving,  render  her  despe- 
rate, until  she  sinks  into  every  depth  of  depravity,  and  is  pre- 
pared for  every  crime  that  can  contaminate  and  infest  society. 
She  has  given  birth  to  a  human  being,  who,  if  it  be  so  unfor- 
tunate as  to  survive  its  miserable  infancy,  is  commonly  educa- 
ted to  a  like  course  of  vice,  depravity,  and  crime. 

Compare  with  this  the  female  slave  under  similar  circum- 
stances. She  is  not  a  less  useful  member  of  society  than  be- 
fore. If  shame  be  attached  to  her  conduct,  it  is  such  shame 
as  would  be  elsewhere  felt  for  a  venial  impropriety.  She  has 
not  impaired  her  means  of  support,  nor  materially  impaired 
her  character,  or  lowered  her  station  in  society ;  she  has  done 
no  great,  injury  to  herself,  or  any  other  human  being.  Her 
offspring  is  not  a  burden  but  an  acquisition  to  her  owner;  his 
support  is  provided  for,  and  he  is  brought  up  to  usefulness  ;  if 
the  fruit  of  intercourse  with  a  freeman,  his  condition  is,  per- 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  43 

haps,  raised  somewhat  above  that  of  his  mother.  Under 
these  circumstances,  with  imperfect  knowledge,  tempted  by 
the  strongest  of  human  passions — unrestrained  by  the  mo- 
tives which  operate  to  restrain,  but  are  so  often  found  insuffi- 
cient to  restrain  the  conduct  of  females  elsewhere,  can  it  be 
matter  of  surprise  that  she  should  so  often  yield  to  the  temp- 
tation ?  Is  not  the  evil  less  in  itself,  and  in  reference  to  socie- 
ty— much  less  in  the  sight  of  God  and  man  ?  As  was  said  of 
theft — the  want  of  chastity,  which  among  females  of  other 
countries  is  sometimes  vice,  sometimes  crime — among  the  free 
of  our  own,  much  more  aggravated ;  among  slaves,  hardly  de- 
serves a  harsher  term  than  that  of  weakness.  I  have  heard 
of  complaint  made  by  a  free  prostitute,  of  the  greater  counte- 
nance and  indulgence  shown  by  society  towards  colored  per- 
sons of  her  profession,  (always  regarded  as  of  an  inferior  and 
servile  class,  though  individually  free,)  than  to  those  of  her 
own  complexion.  The  former  readily  obtain  employment; 
are  even  admitted  into  families,  and  treated  with  some  df- 
gree  of  kindness  and  familiarity,  while  any  approach  to  inter- 
course with  the  latter  is  shunned  as  contamination.  The  dis- 
tinction is  habitually  made,  and  it  is  founded  on  the  unerr- 
ing instinct  of  nature.  The  colored  prostitute  is,  in  fact,  a  far 
less  contaminated  and  depraved  being.  Still  many,  in  spite 
of  temptation,  do  preserve  a  perfectly  virtuous  conduct,  and  I 
imagine  it  hardly  ever  entered  into  the  mind  of  one  of  these, 
that  she  was  likely  to  be  forced  from  it  by  authority  or  vio- 
lence. 

It  may  be  asked,  if  we  have  no  prostitutes  from  the  free 
class  of  society  among  ourselves.  I  answer,  in  no  assignable 
proportion.  With  general  truth,  it  might  be  said,  that  there 
are  none.  When  such  a  case  occurs,  it  is  among  the  rare 
evils  of  society.  And  apart  from  other  and  better  reasons, 
which  we  believe  to  exist,  it  is  plain  that  it  must  be  so,  from 


44  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

the  comparative  absence  of  temptation.  Our  brothels,  com- 
paratively very  few — and  these  should  not  be  permitted  to  exist 
at  all — are  filled,  for  the  most  part,  by  importations  from  the 
cities  of  our  confederate  States,  where  Slavery  does  not  exist. 
In  return  for  the  benefits  which  they  receive  from  our  Slavery, 
along  with  tariffs,  libels,  opinions  moral,  religious,  or  political 
— they  furnish  us  also  with  a  supply  of  thieves  and  prosti- 
tutes. Never,  but  in  a  single  instance,  have  I  heard  of  an 
imputation  on  the  general  purity  of  manners,  among  the  free 
females  of  the  slaveholding  States.  Such  an  imputation,  how- 
ever, and  made  in  coarse  terms,  we  have  never  heard  here — 
here  where  divorce  was  never  known — where  no  Court  was 
ever  polluted  by  an  action  for  criminal  conversation  with  a 
wife — where  it  is  related  rather  as  matter  of  tradition,  not 
unmingled  with  wonder,  that  a  Carolinian  woman  of  educa- 
tion and  family,  proved  false  to  her  conjugal  faith — an  impu- 
tation deserving  only  of  such  reply  as  self-respect  would  for- 
bid us  to  give,  if  respect  for  the  author  of  it  did  not.  And 
can  it  be  doubted,  that  this  purity  is  caused  by,  and  is  a  com- 
pensation for  the  evils  resulting  from  the  existence  of  an  en- 
slaved class  of  more  relaxed  morals  ? 

It  is  mostly  the  warm  passions  of  youth,  which  give  rise  to 
licentious  intercourse.  But  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  the 
intercourse  which  takes  place  with  enslaved  females,  is  less 
depraving  in  its  effects,  than  when  it  is  carried  on  with  fe- 
males of  their  own  caste.  In  the  first  place,  as  like  attracts 
like,  that  which  is  unlike  repels  ;  and  though  the  strength  of 
passion  be  sufficient  to  overcome  the  repulsion,  still  the  at- 
traction is  less.  He  feels  that  he  is  connecting  himself  with 
one  of  an  inferior  and  servile  caste,  and  that  there  is  some- 
thing of  degradation  in  the  act.  The  intercourse  is  generally 
casual ;  he  does  not  make  her  habitually  an  associate,  and  is 
less  likely  to  receive  any  taint  from  her  habits  and  manners. 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  45 

He  is  less  liable  to  those  extraordinary  fascinations,  with 
which  worthless  women  sometimes  entangle  their  victims,  to 
the  utter  destruction  of  all  principle,  worth  and  vigor  of  cha- 
racter. The  female  of  his  own  race  offers  greater  allurements. 
The  haunts  of  vice  often  present  a  show  of  elegance,  and  vari- 
ous luxury  tempts  the  senses.  They  are  made  an  habitual 
resort,  and  their  inmates  associates,  till  the  general  character 
receives  a  taint  from  the  corrupted  atmosphere.  Not  only 
the  practice  is  licentious,  but  the  understanding  is  sophistica- 
ted ;  the  moral  feelings  are  bewildered,  and  the  boundaries  of 
virtue  and  vice  are  confused.  Where  such  licentiousness  very 
extensively  prevails,  society  is  rotten  to  the  heart. 

But  is  it  a  small  compensation  for  the  evils  attending  the 
relation  of  the  sexes  among  the  enslaved  class,  that  they  have 
universally  the  opportunity  of  indulging  the  first  instinct  of 
nature,  by  forming  matrimonial  connexions  ?  What  painful 
restraint — what  constant  effort  to  struggle  against  the  strong- 
est impulses,  are  habitually  practised  elsewhere,  and  by  other 
classes  ?  And  they  must  be  practised,  unless  greater  evils 
would  be  encountered.  On  the  one  side,  all  the  evils  of  vice, 
with  the  miseries  to  which  it  leads — on  the  other,  a  marriage 
cursed  and  made  hateful  by  want — the  sufferings  of  children, 
and  agonizing  apprehensions  concerning  their  future  fate.  Is 
it  a  small  good  that  the  slave  is  free  from  all  this  ?  He 
knows  that  his  own  subsistence  is  secure,  and  that  his  children 
will  be  in  as  good  a  condition  as  himself.  To  a  refined  and 
intellectual  nature,  it  may  not  be  difficult  to  practise  the  re- 
straint of  which  I  have  spoken.  But  the  reasoning  from  such 
to  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  is  most  fallacious.  To  these, 
the  supply  of  their  natural  and  physical  wants,  and  the  indul- 
gence of  the  natural  domestic  affections,  must,  for  the  most 
part,  afford  the  greatest  good  of  which  they  are  capable.  To 
the  evils  which  sometimes  attend  their  matrimonial  connex- 


46  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

ions,  arising  from  their  looser  morality,  slaves,  for  obvious 
reasons,  are  comparatively  insensible.  I  am  no  apologist  of 
vice,  nor  would  I  extenuate  the  conduct  of  the  profligate  and 
unfeeling,  who  would  violate  the  sanctity  of  even  these  en- 
gagements, and  occasion  the  pain  which  such  violations  no 
doubt  do  often  inflict.  Yet  such  is  the  truth,  and  we  cannot 
make  it  otherwise.  We  know  that  a  woman's  having  been 
before  a  mother,  is  very  seldom  indeed  an  objection  to.  her 
being  made  a  wife.  I  know  perfectly  well  how  this  will  be 
regarded  by  a  class  of  reasoners  or  declaimers,  as  imposing  a 
character  of  deeper  horror  on  the  whole  system  ;  but  still,  I 
will  say,  that  if  they  are  to  be  exposed  to  the  evil,  it  is  mercy 
that  the  sensibility  to  it  should  be  blunted.  Is  it  no  compen- 
sation also  for  the  vices  incident  to  Slavery,  that  they  are,  to 
a  great  degree,  secured  against  the  temptation  to  greater 
crimes,  and  more  atrocious  vices,  and  the  miseries  which  at- 
tend them ;  against  their  own  disposition  to  indolence,  and 
the  profligacy  which  is  its  common  result  ? 

But  if  they  are  subject  to  the  vices,  they  have  also  the  vir- 
tues of  slaves.  Fidelity — often  proof  against  all  temptation — 
even  death  itself — an  eminently  cheerful  and  social  temper — 
what  the  Bible  imposes  as  a  duty,  but  which  might  seem  an 
equivocal  virtue  in  the  code  of  modern  morality — submission 
to  constituted  authority,  and  a  disposition  to  be  attached  to, 
as  well  as  to  respect  those,  whom  they  are  taught  to  regard 
as  superiors.  They  may  have  all  the  knowledge  which  will 
make  them  useful  in  the  station  in  which  God  has  been  pleased 
to  place  them,  and  may  cultivate  the  virtues  which  will  ren- 
der them  acceptable  to  him.  But  what  has  the  slave  of  any 
country  to  do  with  heroic  virtues,  liberal  knowledge,  or  ele- 
gant accomplishments  ?  It  is  for  the  master  ;  arising  out  of 
his  situation — imposed  on  him  as  duty — dangerous  and  dis- 
graceful if  neglected — to  compensate  for  this,  by  his  own  more 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ox  SLAVERY.  47 

assiduous  cultivation,  of  the  more  generous  virtues,  and  libe- 
ral attainments. 

It  has  been  supposed  one  of  the  great  evils  of  Slavery,  that 
it  affords  the  slave  no  opportunity  of  raising  himself  to  a 
higher  rank  in  society,  and  that  he  has,  therefore,  no  induce- 
ment to  meritorious  exertion,  or  the  cultivation  of  his  faculties. 
The  indolence  and  carelessness  of  the  slave,  and  the  less  pro- 
ductive quality  of  his  labor,  are  traced  to  the  want  of  such 
excitement.  The  first  compensation  for  this  disadvantage,  is 
his  security.  If  he  can  rise  no  higher,  he  is  just  in  the  same 
degree  secured  against  the  chances  of  falling  lower.  It  has 
been  sometimes  made  a  question  whether  it  were  better  for 
7nan  to  be  freed  from  the  perturbations  of  hope  and  fear,  or 
to  be  exposed  to  their  vicissitudes.  But  I  suppose  there  could 
be  little  question  with  respect  to  a  situation,  in  which  the  fears 
must  greatly  predominate  over  the  hopes.  And  such,  I  ap- 
prehend, to  be  the  condition  of  the  laboring  poor  in  countries 
where  Slavery  does  not  exist.  If  not  exposed  to  present  suf- 
fering, there  is  continual  apprehension  for  the  future — for 
themselves — for  their  children — of  sickness  and  want,  if  not 
of  actual  starvation.  They  expect  to  improve  their  circum- 
stances !  Would  any  person  of  ordinary  candor,  say  that 
there  is  one  in  a  hundred  of  them,  who  does  not  well  know, 
that  with  all  the  exertion  he  can  make,  it  is  out  of  his  power 
materially  to  improve  his  circumstances  ?  I  speak  not  so 
much  of  menial  servants,  who  are  generally  of  a  superior 
class,  as  of  the  agricultural  and  manufacturing  laborers.  They 
labor  with  no  such  view.  It  is  the  instinctive  struggle  to  pre- 
serve existence,  and  when  the  superior  efficiency  of  their  labor 
over  that  of  our  slaves  is  pointed  out,  as  being  animated  by  a 
free  man's  hopes,  might  it  not  well  be  replied — it  is  because 
they  labor  under  a  sterner  compulsion.  The  laws  interpose 
no  obstacles  to  their  raising  their  condition  in  society.  'Tis  a 


48  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

great  boon — but  as  to  the  great  mass,  they  know  that  they 
never  will  be  able  to  raise  it — and  it  should  seem  not  very 
important  in  effect,  whether  it  be  the  interdict  of  law,  or  im- 
posed by  the  circumstances  of  the  society.  One  in  a  thousand 
is  successful.  But  does  his  success  compensate  for  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  many  who  are  tantalized,  baffled,  and  tortured  in 
vain  attempts  to  attain  a  like  result  ?  If  the  individual  be 
conscious  of  intellectual  power,  the  suffering  is  greater.  Even 
where  success  is  apparently  attained,  he  sometimes  gains  it 
but  to  die — or  with  all  capacity  to  enjoy  it  exhausted — worn 
out  in  the  struggle  with  fortune.  If  it  be  true  that  the  Afri- 
can is  an  inferior  variety  of  the  human  race,  of  less  elevated 
character,  and  more  limited  intellect,  is  it  not  desirable  that 
the  inferior  laboring  class  should  be  made  up  of  such,  who 
•will  conform  to  their  condition  without  painful  aspirations 
and  vain  struggles  ? 

The  slave  is  certainly  liable  to  be  sold.  But,  perhaps,  it 
may  be  questioned,  whether  this  is  a  greater  evil  than  the  lia- 
bility of  the  laborer,  in  fully  peopled  countries,  to  be  dismissed 
by  his  employer,  with  the  uncertainty  of  being  able  to  obtain 
employment,  or  the  means  of  subsistence  elsewhere.  With 
us,  the  employer  cannot  dismiss  his  laborer  without  providing 
him  with  another  employer.  His  means  of  subsistence  are 
secure,  and  this  is  a  compensation  for  much.  He  is  also  lia- 
ble to  be  separated  from  wife  and  child — though  not  more 
frequently,  that  I  am  aware  of,  than  the  exigency  of  their 
condition  compels  the  separation  of  families  among  the  labor- 
ing poor  elsewhere — but  from  native  character  and  tempera- 
ment, the  separation  is  much  less  severely  felt.  And  it  is  one 
of  the  compensations,  that  he  may  sustain  these  relations 
without  suffering  a  still  severer  penalty  for  the  indulgence. 

The  love  of  liberty  is  a  noble  passion — to  have  the  free, 
uncontrolled  disposition  of  ourselves,  our  words  and  actions- 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERT.  Ill 

Of  the  other  half,  a  large  proportion  are  both  educa- 
ted and  independent  in  their  circumstances,  while  those  who 
unfortunately  are  not  so,  being  still  elevated  far  above  tho 
mass,  arc  higher  toned  and  more  deeply  interested  in  pre- 
serving a  stable  and  well  ordered  government,  than  the  same 
class  in  any  other  country.  Hence,  Slavery  is  truly  the 
"  corner-stone "  and  foundation  of  every  well-des'gned  and 
durable  "  republican  edifice." 

With  us  every  citizen  is  concerned  in  tho  maintenance  of 
order,  and  in  promoting  honesty  and  industry  among  those  of 
the  lowest  class  who  are  our  slaves ;  and  our  habitual  vigi- 
lance renders  standing  armies,  whether  of  soldiers  or  police- 
men, entirely  unnecessary.  Small  guards  in  our  cities,  and 
occasional  patrols  in  the  country,  ensure  us  a  repose  and  se- 
curity known  no  where  else.  You  cannot  be  ignorant  that, 
excepting  the  United  States,  there  is  no  country  in  the  world 
whose  existing  government  would  not  bo  overturned  in  a 
month,  but  for  its  standing  armies,  maintained  at  an  enormous 
and  destructive  cost  to  those  whom  they  are  dgatinedto  over- 
a\ve — so  rampant  and  combative  is  the  spirit  of  discontent 
wherever  nominal  free  laltor  prevails,  with  its  ostcnsive  privi- 
leges and  its  dismal  servitude.  Nor  will  it  be  long  before  the 
'•''free  States11  of  this  Union  will  be  compelled  to  introduce 
the  same  expensive  machinery,  to  preserve  order  among  their* 
"free  and  equal"  citizens.  Already  has  Philadelphia  organ- 
ized a  permanent  battalion  for  this  purpose;  New- York,  Bos- 
ton and  Cincinnati  will  soon  follow  her  example  ;  and  then  the 
smaller  towns  and  densely  populated  counties.  Tho  inter- 
vention of  their  militia  to  repress  violations  of  tho  peace  is 
becoming  a  daily  affair.  A  strong  government,  after  some  of 
the  old  fashions— though  prol>al>ly  with  a  new  name — sus- 
tained l»y  the  force  of  armed  mercenaries,  is  the  ultimate 
destiny  of  tho  non-slave-holding  section  of  this  confederacy, 
and  one  which  may  not  be  very  distant. 


112  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose,  as  is  generally  done  abroad, 
that  in  case  of  war  slavery  would  be  a  source  of  weakness. 
It  did  not  weaken  Rome,  nor  Athens,  nor  Sparta,  though  their 
slaves  were  comparatively  far  more  numerous  than  ours,  of 
the  same  color  for  the  most  part  with  themselves,  and  large 
numbers  of  them  familiar  with  the  use  of  arms.  I  have  no 
apprehension  that  our  slaves  would  seize  such  an  opportunity 
to  revolt.  The  present  generation  ef  them,  born  among  us, 
would  never  think  of  such  a  thing  at  any  time,  unless  insti- 
gated to  it  by  others.  Against  such  instigations  we  are  al- 
ways on  our  guard.  In  time  of  war  we  should  be  more 
watchful  and  better  prepared  to  put  down  insurrections  than 
at  any  other  periods.  Should  any  foreign  nation  be  so  lost 
to  every  sentiment  of  civilized  humanity,  as  to  attempt  to 
erect  among  us  the  standard  of  revolt,  or  to  invade  us  with 
black  troops,  for  the  base  and  barbarous  purpose  of  stirring 
up  servile  war,  their  efforts  would  be  signally  rebuked.  Our 
slaves  could  not  be  easily  seduced,  nor  would  any  thing  de- 
light them  more  than  to  assist  in  stripping  Cuffee  of  his  regi- 
mentals to  put  him  in  the  cotton-field,  which  would  be  the 
fate  of  most  black  invaders,  without  any  very  prolix  form  of 
"  apprenticeship."  If,  as  I  am  satisfied  would  be  the  case,  our 
slaves  remained  peaceful  on  our  plantations,  and  cultivated 
.  them  in  time  of  war  under  the  superintendence  of  a  limited 
number  of  our  citizens,  it  is  obvious  that  we  could  put  forth 
more  strength  in  such  an  emergency,  at  less  sacrifice,  than 
any  other  people  of  the  same  numbers.  And  thus  we  should 
in  every  point  of  view,  ''  out  of  this  nettle  danger,  pluck  the 
flower  safety." 

How  far  Slavery  may  be  an  advantage  or  disadvantage  to 
those  not  owning  slaves,  yet  united  with  us  in  political  asso- 
ciation, is  a  question  for  their  sole  consideration.  It  is  true 
that  our  representation  in  Congress  is  increased  by  it.  But  so 


d 

HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  113 

are  our  taxes ;  and  the  non  slave-holding  States,  being  the 
majority,  divide  among  themselves  far  the  greater  portion  of 
the  amount  levied  by  the  Federal  Government.  And  I  doubt 
not  that,  when  it  comes  to  a  close  calculation,  they  will  not 
be  slow  in  finding  out  that  the  balance  of  profit  arising  from 
the  connection  is  vastly  in  their  favor. 

In  a  social  point  of  view  the  abolitionists  pronounce  Slavery 
to  be  a  monstrous  evil.  If  it  was  so,  it  would  be  our  own  pe- 
culiar concern,  and  superfluous  benevolence  in  them  to  lament 
over  Hi  Seeing  their  bitter  hostility  to  us,  they  might  leave 
us  to  cope  with  our  own  calamities.  But  they  make  war  upon 
us  out  of  excess  of  charity,  and  attempt  to  purify  by  covering 
us  with  calumny.  You  have  read  and  assisted  to  circulate  a 
great  deal  about  affrays,  duels  and  murders,  occurring  here, 
and  all  attributed  to  the  terrible  demoralization  of  Slavery. 
Not  a'  single  event  of  this  sort  takes  place  among  us,  but  it  is 
caught  up  by  the  abolitionists,  and  paraded  over  the  world, 
with  endless  comments,  variations  and  exaggerations.  You 
should  not  take  what  reaches  you  as  a  mere  sample,  and  infer 
that  there  is  a  vast  deal  more  you  never  hear.  You  hear  all, 
and  more  than  all,  the  truth. 

It  is  true  that  the  point  of  honor  is  recognized  throughout 
the  slave  region,  and  that  disputes  of  certain  classes  are  fre- 
quently referred  for  adjustment,  to  the  "trial  by  combat." 
It  would  not  be  appropriate  for  me  to  enter,  in  this  letter,  into 
a  defence  of  the  practice  of  duelling,  nor  to  maintain  at  length, 
that  it  does  not  tarnish  the  character  of  a  people  to  acknow- 
ledge a  standard  of  honor.  Whatever  evils  may  arise  from 
it,  however,  they  cannot  be  attributed  to  Slavery,  since  the  same 
custom  prevails  both  in  France  and  England.  Few  of  your 
Prime  Ministers,  of  the  last  half-century  even,  have  escaped 
the  contagion,  I  believe.  The  affrays,  of  "which  so  much  is 
said,  and  in  which  rifles,  bowie-knives  and  pistols  are  so  prom- 
•10 


114  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

«k 

inent,  occur  mostly  in  the  frontier  States  of  the  South- West. 
They  are  naturally  incidental  to  the  condition  of  society,  as  it 
exists  in  many  sections  of  these  recently  settled  countries,  and 
will  as  naturally  cease  in  due  time.  Adventurers  from  the 
older  States,  and  from  Europe,  as  desperate  in  character  as 
they  are  in  fortune,  congregate  in  these  wild  regions,  jostling 
one  another  and  often  forcing  the  peaceable  and  honest  into 
rencontres  in  self-defence.  Slavery  has  nothing  to  do  with 
these  things.  Stability  and  peace  are  the  first  deskes  of 
every  slave-holder,  and  the  true  tendency  of  the  system.  It 
could  not  possibly  exist  amid  the  eternal  anarchy  and  civil 
broils  of  the  ancient  Spanish  dominions  in  America.  And 
for  this  very  reason,  domestic  Slavery  has  ceased  there.  So 
far  from  encouraging  strife,  such  scenes  of  riot  and  bloodshed, 
as  have  within  the  last  few  years  disgraced  our  Northern 
cities,  and  as  you  have  lately  witnessed  in  Birmingham  and 
Bristol  and  Wales,  not  only  never  have  occurred,  but  I  will 
venture  to  say,  never  will  occur  in  our  slave-holding  States. 
The  only  thing  that  can  create  a  mob  (as  you  might  call  it)  here, 
is  the  appearance  of  an  abolitionist,  whom  the  people  assemble 
to  chastise.  And  this  is  no  more  of  a  mob,  than  a  rally  of 
shepherds  to  chase  a  wolf  out  of  their  pastures  would  be 
one. 

But  we  are  swindlers  and  repudiators !  Pennsylvania  is  not 
a  slave  State.  A  majority  of  the  States  which  have  failed  to 
meet  their  obligations  punctually  are  non-slave-holding ;  and 
two-thirds  of  the  debt  said  to  be  repudiated  is  owed  by  these 
States.  Many  of  the  States  of  this  Union  are  heavily  encum- 
bered with  debt — none  so  hopelessly  as  England.  Pennsyl- 
vania owes  $22  for  each  inhabitant — England  $222,  counting 
her  paupers  in.  Nor  has  there  been  any  repudiation  definite 
and  final,  of  a  lawful  debt,  that  I  am  aware  of.  A  few  States 
have  failed  to  pay  some  instalments  of  interest.  The  extra- 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  115 

ordinary  financial  difficulties  which,  occurred  a  few  years  ago 
will  account  for  it.  Time  will  set  all  things  right  again. 
Every  dollar  of  both  principal  and  interest,  owed  hy  any 
State,  North  or  South,  will  be  ultimately  paid,  unless  the  abo- 
lition of  Slavery  overwhelms  us  all  in  one  common  ruin. 
But  have  no  other  nations  failed  to  pay  ?  When  were  the 
French  Assignats  redeemed  ?  How  much  interest  did  your 
National  Bank  pay  on  its  immense  circulation/from  1797  to 
1821,  during  which  period  that  circulation  was  inconvertible, 
and  for  the  time  repudiated  ?  How  much  of  your  national 
debt  has  been  incurred  for  money  borrowed  to  meet  the  inter- 
est on  it,  thus  avoiding  delinquency  in  detail,  by  insuring  inevi- 
table bankruptcy  and  repudiation  in  the  end  ?  And  what  sort  of 
operation  was  that  by  which  your  present  Ministry  recently 
expunged  a  handsome  amount  of  that  debt,  by  substituting, 
through  a  process  just  not  compulsory,  one  species  of  security 
for  another?  I  am  well  aware  that  the  faults  of  others  do 
not  excuse  our  own,  but  when  failings  are  charged  to  Slavery, 
which  are  shown  to  occur  to  equal  extent  where  it  does  not 
exist,  surely  Slavery  must  be  acquitted  of  the  accusation. 

It  is  roundly  asserted,  that  we  are  not  so  well  educated  nor 
so  religious  here  as  elsewhere.  I  will  not  go  into  tedious 
statistical  statements  on  these  subjects.  Nor  have  I,  to  tell 
the  truth,  much  confidence  in  the  details  of  what  are  com- 
monly set  forth  as  statistics.  As  to  education,  you  will  pro- 
bably admit  that  slave-holders  should  have  more  leisure  for 
mental  culture  than  most  people.  And  I  believe  it  is  charged 
against  them,  that  they  are  peculiarly  fontl  of  power,  and  am- 
bitious of  honors.  If  this  be  so,  as  all  the  power  and  honors 
of  this  country  are  won  mainly  by  intellectual  superiority,  it 
might  be  fairly  presumed,  that  slave-holders  would  not  be 
neglectful  of  education.  In  proof  of  the  accuracy  of  this  pre- 
sumption, I  point  you  to  the  facts,  that  our  Presidential  chair 


116  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

lias  been  occupied  for  forty-four  out  of  fifty-si?  years,  by  slave- 
holders ;  that  another  has  been  recently  elected  to  fill  it  for 
four  more,  over  an  opponent  who  was  a  slave-holder  also ; 
and  that  in  the  Federal  Offices  and  both  Houses  of  Congress, 
considerably  more  than  a  due  proportion  of  those  acknow- 
ledged to  stand  in  the  first  rank  are  from  the  South.  In  this 
arena,  the  intellects  of  the  free  and  slave  States_  meet  in  full 
and  fair  competition.  Nature  must  have  been  unusually 
bountiful  to  us,  or  we  have  been  at  least  reasonably  assiduous 
in  the  cultivation  of  such  gifts  as  she  has  bestowed — unless 
indeed  you  refer  our  superiority  to  moral  qualities,  which  I 
am  sure  you  will  not.  More  wealthy  we  are  not ;  nor  would 
mere  wealth  avail  in  such  rivalry. 

The  piety  of  the  South  is  unobtrusive.  We  think  it  proves 
but  little,  though  it  is  a  confident  thing  for  a  man  to  claim 
that  he  stands  higher  in  the  estimation  of  his  Creator,  and  is 
less  a  sinner  than  his  neighbor.  If  vociferation  is  to  carry 
the  question  of  religion,  the  North,  and  probably  the  Scotch, 
have  it.  Our  sects  are  few,  harmonious,  pretty  much  united 
among  themselves,  and  pursue  their  avocations  in  humble 
peace.  In  fact,  our  professors  of  religion  seem  to  think — 
whether  correctly  or  not — that  it  is  their  duty  "  to  do  good  in 
secret,"  and  to  carry  their  holy  comforts  to  the  heart  of  each 
individual,  without  reference  to  class  or  color,  for  his  special 
enjoyment,  and  not  with  a  view  to  exhibit  their  zeal  before  the 
world.  So  far  as  numbers  are  concerned,  I  believe  our  cler- 
gymen, when  called  on  to  make  a  showing,  have  never  had 
occasion  to  blush,.if  comparisons  were  drawn  between  the 
free  and  slave  States.  And  although  our  presses  do  not  teem 
with  controversial  pamphlets,  nor  our  pulpits  shake  with  ex- 
communicating thunders,  the  daily  walk  of  our  'reliojious  com- 
municants furnishes,  apparently,  as  little  food  for  gossip  as  is 
to  be  found  in  most  other  regions.  It  may  be  regarded  as  a 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  117 

mark  of  our  want  of  excitability — though  that  is  a  quality 
accredited  to  us  in  an  eminent  degree — that  few  of  the  re- 
markable religious  Isms  of  the  present  day  have  taken  root 
among  us.  We  have  been  so  irreverent  as  to  laugh  at  Mor- 
monism  and  Millerism,  which  have  created  such  commotions 
farther  North ;  and  modern  prophets  have  no  honor  in  our 
country.  Shakers,  Rappists,  Bunkers,  Socialists,  Fourrierists 
and  the  like,  keep  themselves  afar  off.  Even  Puseyism  has 
not  yet  moved  us.  You  may  attribute  this  to  our  domestic 
Slavery  if  you  choose.  I  believe  you  would  do  so  justly. 
There  is  no  material  here  for  such  characters  to  operate  upon. 
But  your  grand  charge  is,  that  licentiousness  in  intercourse 
between  the  sexes,  is  a  prominent  trial  of  our  social  system* 
and  that  it  necessarily  arises  from  Slavery.  This  is  a  favorite 
theme  with  the  abolitionists,  male  and  female.  Folios  have 
been  written  on  it.  It  is  a  common  observation,  that  there  is 
no  subject  on  which  ladies  of  eminent  virtue  so  much  delight 
to  dwell,  and  on  which  in  especial  learned  old  maids,  like  Miss 
Martineau,  linger  with  such  an  insatiable  relish.  They  expose 
it  in  the  slave  States  with  the  most  minute  observance  and 
endless  iteration.  Miss  Martineau,  with  peculiar  gusto; relates 
a  series  of  scandalous  stories,  which  would  have  made  Bocca- 
cio  jealous  of  her  pen,  but  which  are  so  ridiculously  false  as 
to  leave  no  doubt,  that  some  wicked  wag,  knowing  she  would 
write  a  book,  has  furnished  her  materials — a  game  too  often 
played  on  tourists  in  this  country.  The  constant  recurrence 
of  the  female  abolitionists  to  this  topic,  and  their  bitterness  in 
regard  to  it,  cannot  fail  to  suggest  to  even  the  most  charitable 
mind,  that 

"  Such  rage  without  betrays  the  fires  "within." 

Nor  are  their  immaculate  coadjutors  of  the  other  sex,  though 
perhaps  less  specific  in  their  charges,  less  violent  in  their  de- 
nunciations. But  recently  in  your  Island,  a  clergyman  has, 


118  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

at  a  public  meeting,  stigmatized  the  whole  slave  region  as  a 
"  brothel."  Do  these  people  thus  cast  stones,  being  "  without 
sin  ?"  Or  do  they  only 

"  Compound  for  sins  they  are  inclined  to 
By  damning  those  they  have  no  mind  to." 

Alas  that  David  and  Solomon  should  be  allowed  to  repose  in 
peace — that  Leo  should  be  almost  canonized,  and  Luther 
more  than  sainted — that  in  our  own  day  courtezans  should  be 
formally  licensed  in  Paris,  and  tenements  in  London  rented 
for  years  to  women  of  the  town  for  the  benefit  of  the  Church, 
with  the  knowledge  of  the  Bishop — and  the  poor  slave  States 
of  America  alone  pounced  upon,  and  offered  up  as  a  holocaust 
on  the  altar  of  irnmaculateness,  to  atone  for  the  abuse  of 
natural  instinct  by  alLmankind  ;  and  if  not  actually  consumed, 
at  least  exposed,  anathematized  and  held  up  to  scorn,  by  those 
who 

"  Write, 
Or  with  a  rival's  or  an  eunuch's  spite." 

But  I  do  not  intend  to  admit  that  this  charge  is  just  or 
true.  Without  meaning  to  profess  uncommon  modesty,  I 
will  say  that  I  wish  the  topic  could  be  avoided.  I  am  of 
opinion,  and  I  doubt  not  every  right-minded  man  will  concur, 
that  the  public  exposure  and  discussion  of  this  vice,  even  to 
rebuke,  invariably  does  more  harm  than  good ;  and  that  if  it 
cannot  be  checked  by  instilling  pure  and  virtuous  sentiments, 
it  is  far  worse  than  useless  to  attempt  to  do  it,  by  exhibiting 
its  deformities.  I  may  not,  however,  pass  it  over ;  nor  ought 
I  to  feel  any  delicacy  in  examining  a  question,  to  which  the 
slave-holder  is  invited  and  challenged  by  clergymen  and  vir- 
gins. So  far  from  allowing,  then,  that  licentiousness  pervades 
this  region,  I  broadly  assert,  and  I  refer  to  the  records  of  our 
courts,  to  the  public  press,  and  to  the  knowledge  of  all  who 
have  ever  lived  here,  that  among  our  white  population  there 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  119 

are  fewer  cases  of  divorce,  separation,  crim.  con.,  seduction, 
rape  and  bastardy,  than  among  any  other  five  millions  of  peo- 
ple on  the  civilized  earth.  And  this  fact  I  believe  will  be 
conceded  by  the  abolitionists  of  this  country  themselves.  I 
am  almost  willing  to  refer  it  to  them  and  submit  to  their  de- 
cision on  it.  I  would  not  hesitate  to  do  so,  if  I  thought  them 
capable  of  an  impartial  judgment  on  any  matter  where  Slavery 
is  in  question.  But  it  is  said,  that  the  licentiousness  consists 
in  the  constant  intercourse  between  white  males  and  colored 
females.  One  of  your  heavy  charges  against  us  has  been, 
that  we  regard  and  treat  these  people  as  brutes ;  you  now 
charge  us  with  habitually  taking  them  to  our  bosoms.  I  will 
not  comment  on  the  inconsistency  of  these  accusations.  I 
will  not  deny  that  some  intercourse  of  the  sort  does  take  place- 
Its  character  and  extent,  however,  are  grossly  and  atrociously 
exaggerated.  No  authority,  divine  or  human,  has  yet  been 
found  sufficient  to  arrest  all  such  irregularities  among  men. 
But  it  is  a  known  fact,  that  they  are  perpetrated  here,  for  the 
most  part,  in  the  cities.  Very  few  mulattoes  are  reared  on 
our  plantations.  In  the  cities,  a  large  proportion  of  the  in- 
habitants do  not  own  slaves.  A  still  larger  proportion  are 
natives  of  the  North,  or  foreigners.  They  should  share,  and 
justly,  too,  an  equal  part  in  this  sin  with  the  slave-holders. 
Facts  cannot  be  ascertained,  or  I  doubt  not,  it  would  appear 
that  they  are  the  chief  offenders.  If  the  truth  be  otherwise, 
then  persons  from  abroad  have  stronger  prejudices  against  the 
African  race  than  we  have.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  well 
known,  that  this  intercourse  is  regarded  in  our  society  as  high- 
ly disreputable.  If  carried  on  habitually,  it  seriously  affects 
a  man's  standing,  so  far  as  it  is  known  ;  and  he  who  takes  a 
colored  mistress — with  rare  and  extraordinary  exceptions — 
loses  caste  at  once.  You  will  say  that  one  exception  should 
damn  our  whole  country.  How  much  less  criminal  is  it  to  take 


12  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

a  white  mistress  ?  In  your  eyes  it  should  be  at  least  an  equal 
offence.  Yet  look  around  you  at  home,  from  the  cottage  to 
the  throne,  and  count  how  many  mistresses  are  kept  in  un- 
blushing notoriety,  without  loss  of  caste.  Such  cases  are 
nearly  unknown  here,  and  down  even  to  the  lowest  walks  of 
life,  it  is  almost  invariably  fatal  to  a  man's  position  and  pros- 
pects to  keep  a  mistress  openly,  whether  white  or  black. 
What  Miss  Martineau  relates  of  a  young  man's  purchasing  a 
colored  concubine  from  a  lady,  and-  avowing  his  designs,  is  too 
absurd  even  for  contradiction.  No  person  would  dare  to  al- 
lude to  such  a  subject,  in  such  a  manner,  to  any 'decent  female 
in  this  country. 

After  all,  however,  the  number  of  the  mixed  breed,  in  pro- 
portion to  that  of  the  black,  is  infinitely  small,  and  out  of  the 
towns  next  to  nothing.  And  when  it  is  considered  that  the 
African  race  has  been  among  us  for  two  hundred  years,  and 
that  those  of  the  mixed  breed  continually  intermarry — often 
rearing  large  families — it  is  a  decided  proof  of  our  continence, 
that  so  few  comparatively  are  to  be  found.  Our  misfortunes 
are  two-fold.  From  the  prolific  propagation  of  these  mongrels 
among  themselves,  we  are  liable  to  be  charged  by  tourists 
with  delinquencies  where  none  have  been  committed,  while, 
where  one  has  been,  it  cannot  be  concealed.  Color  marks  in- 
delibly the  offence,  and  reveals  it  to,  every  eye.  Conceive 
that,  even  in  your  virtuous  and  polished  country,  if  every  bas- 
tard, through  all  the  circles  of  your  social  system,  was  thus 
branded  by  nature  and  known  to  all,  what  shocking  develop- 
ments might  there  not  be !  How  little  indignation  might  your 
saints  have  to  spare  for  the  licentiousness  of  the  slave  region. 
But  I  have  done  with  this  disgusting  topic.  And  I  think  I 
may  justly  conclude,  after  all  the  scandalous  charges  which 
tea-table  gossip,  and  long-gowned  hypocrisy  have  brought 
against  the  slave-holders,  that  a  people  whose  men  are  prover- 


HAMMOND'S  LETTBES  OK  SLAVEKY.  121 

bially  brave,  intellectual  and  hospitable,  and  whose  women  are 
unaffectedly  chaste,  devoted  to  domestic 'life,  and  happy  in  it, 
can  neither  be  degraded  nor  demoralized,  whatever  their  in- 
stitutions may  be.  My  decided  opinion  is,  that  our  system  of 
Slavery  contributes  largely  to  the  development  and  culture 
of  these  high,  and  noble  qualities. 

In  an  economical  point  of  view — which  I  will  not  omit— 
Slavery  presents  some  difficulties.  As  a  general  rule,  I  agree 
it  must  be  admitted,  that  free  labor  is  cheaper  than  .slave  labor. 
It  is  a  fallacy  to  suppose  that  ours  is  unpaid  labor.  The  slave 
himself  must  be  paid  for,  and  thus  his  labor  is  all  purchased 
at  once,  and  for  no  trifling  sum.  Ilis  price  was,  in  the  first 
place,  paid  mostly  to  your  countrymen,  and  assisted  in  build- 
ing up  some  of  those  colossal  English  fortunes,  since  illustrated 
by  patents  of  nobility,  and  splendid  piles  of  architecture, 
stained  and  cemented,  if  you  like  the  expression,  with  the 
.blood  of  kidnapped  innocents ;  but  loaded  with  no  heavier 
curses  than  abolition  and  its  begotten  fanaticisms  have  brought 
upon  your  land — some  of  them  fulfilled,  some  yet  to  be.  But 
besides  the  first  cost  of  the  slave,  he  must  be  fed  and  clothed, 
well  fed  and  well  clothed,  if  not  for  humanity's  sake,  that  he 
may  do  good  work,  retain  health  and  life,  -and  rear  a  family 
to  supply  his  place.  When  old  or  sick,  he  is  a  clear  expense, 
and  so  is  the  helpless  portion  of  his  family.  No  poor  law 
provides  for  him  when  unable  to  work,  or  brings  up  his  chil- 
dren for  our  service  when  we  need  them.  These  are  all  heavy 
charges  on  slave  labor.  Hence,  in  all  countries  where  the 
denseness  of  the  population  has  reduced  it  to  a  matter  of  per- 
fect certainty,  that  labor  can  be  obtained,  whenever  wanted, 
and  the  laborer  be  forced,  by  sheer  necessity,  to  hire  for  the 
smallest  pittance  that  will  keep  soul  and-  body  together,  and 
rags  upon  his  back  while  in  actual  employment — dependent 
at  all  other  times  on  alms  or  poor  rates — in  all  such  countries 
11 


122  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

it  is  found  cheaper  to  pay  this  pittance,  than  to  clothe,  feed, 
nurse,  support  through  childhood,  and  pension  in  old  age,  a 
race  of  slaves.  Indeed,  the  advantage  is  so  great  as  speedily 
to  compensate  for  the  loss  of  the  value  of  the  slave.  And  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  that  if  I  could  cultivate  my  lands 
on  these  terms,  I  would,  "without  a  word,  resign  my  slaves, 
provided  they  could  be  properly  disposed  of.  But  the  ques- 
tion is,  whether  free  or  slave  labor  is  cheapest  to  us  in  this 
Country,  at  this  time,  situated  as  we  are.  And  it  is  decided  at 
once  by  the  fact  that  we  cannot  avail  ourselves  of  any  other 
than  slave  labor.  We  neither  have,  nor  can  we  procure,  other 
labor  to  any  extent,  or  on  anything  like  the  terms  mentioned. 
We  must,  therefore,  content  ourselves  with  our  dear  labor, 
under  the  consoling  reflection  that  what  is  lost  to  us,  is  gained 
to  humanity;  and  that,  inasmuch  as  our  slave  costs  us  more 
than  your  free  man  costs  you,  by  so  much  is  he  better  off. 
You-  will  promptly  say,  emancipate  your  slaves,  and  then  you 
will  have  free  labor  on  suitable  terms.  .That  might  be  if  there 
were  five  hundred  where  there  now  is  one,  and  the  continent, 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  was  as  densely  populated  as 
your  Island.  But  until  that  comes  to  pass,  no  labor  can  be 
procured  in  America  on  the  terms  you  have  it. 

While  I  thus  freely  admit  that  to  the  individual  proprietor 
slave  labor  is  dearer  than  free,  I  do, not  mean  to  admit  as 
equally  clear  that  it  is  dearer  to  the  community  and  to  the 
State.  Though  it  is  certain  that  the  slave  is  a  far  greater 
consumer  than  your  laborer,  the  year  round,  yet  your  pauper 
system  is  costly  and  wasteful.  Supported  by  your  community 
at  large,  it  is  not  administered  by  your  hired  agents  with  that 
interested  care  and  economy — not  to  speak  of  humanity — 
which  mark  the  management  of  ours,  by  each  proprietor,  for 
his  own  non-effectives;  and  is  both  more  expensive  to  those 
who  pay,  and  less  beneficial  to  those  who  receive  its  bounties. 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  OF  SLAVERY.  J.23 

Besides  this,  Slavery  is  rapidly  filling  up  our  country  with  a 
hardy  and  healthy  race,  peculiarly  adapted  to  our  climate  and 
productions,  and  conferring  signal  political  and  social  advan- 
tages on  us- as  a  people,  to  which  I  have  already  referred. 

I  have  yet  to  reply  to  the  main  "ground  on  which  you  and 
your  coadjutors  rely  for  the  overthrow  of  our  system  of  Slave- 
ry. Failing  in  all  your  attempts  to  prove  that  it  is  sinful  in 
its  nature,  immoral  in  its  effects,  a  political  evil,  arid  profitless 
to  those  who  maintain  it,  you  appeal  to  the  sympathies  of 
mankind,  and  attempt  to  arouse  the  world  against  us  by  the 
most  shocking  charges  of  tyranny  and  cruelty.  You  begin 
by  a  vehement  denunciation  of  "  the  irresponsible  power  of 
one  man  over  his  fellow  men."  The  question  of  the  respon- 
sibility of  power  is  a  vast  one.  It  is  the  great  political  ques- 
tion of  modern  times.  Whole  nations  divide  off  upon  it  and 
establish  different  fundamental  systems  of  government.  That 
"responsibility,"  which  to  one  set  of  millions  seems  amply 
sufficient  to  check  the-  government,  to  the-  support  of  which 
they  devote  their  lives  and  fortunes,  appears  to  another  set  of 
millions  a  mere  mockery  of  restraint.  And  accordingly  as 
the  opinions  of  these  millions  differ,  they  honor  each  other 
with  the  epithets  of  "  serfs  "  or  "  anarchists."  It  is  ridiculous 
to  introduce  such  an  idea  as  this  into  the  discussion  of  a  mere 
domestic  institution;  but  since  you  have  introduced  it,  I  deny 
that  the  power  of  the  slave-holder  in  America  is  "  irresponsi- 
ble." He  is  responsible  to  God.  He  is  responsible  to  the 
world — a  responsibility  which  abolitionists  do  not  intend  to 
allow  him  to  evade — and  in  acknowledgment  of  which,  I 
write  you  this  letter.  He  is  responsible  to  the  community  in 
which  he  live?,  and .  to  the  laws  under  which  he  enjoys  his 
civil  rights.  .  Those  laws  do  not  permit  him  to  kill,  to  maim, 
or  to  punish  beyond  certain  limits,  or  to  overtask,  or  to  refuse 
to  feed  and  clothe  his  slave.  In  short,  they  forbid  him  to  be 


124  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

tyrannical  or  cruel.  If  any  of  these  laws  have  grown  obso- 
lete, it  is  because  they  are  so  seldom  violated,  that  they  are 
forgotten.  You  have  disinterred  one  of  them,  from  a  compi- 
lation by  some  Judge  Stroud  of  Philadelphia,  to  stigmatize  its 
inadequate  penalties  for  killing,  maiming,  &c.  Your  object 
appears  to  be — =you  can  have  no  other — to  produce  -the  im- 
pression, that  it  must  be  often  violated  on  account  of  its  insuf- 
ficiency. You  say  as  much,  and  that  it  marks  our  estimate 
of  the  slave.  You  forget  to  state  that  this  law  was  enacted 
by  Englishmen,  and  only  indicates  their  opinion  of  the  repa- 
ration due  for  these  offences.  -Ours  is  proved  by  the  fact, 
though' perhaps  unknown  to  Judge  Stroud  or  yourself,  tliat 
we  have  essentially  altered  this  law ;  and  the  murder  of  a 
slave  has-for  many  years  been  punishable  with  death  in  this 
State.  And  so  it  is,  I  believe,  in  most  or  all  the  slave  States. 
You  seem  well  aware,  however,  that  laws  have  been  recently 
passed  in  all  these  States,  making  it  penal  to  teach  slaves  to 
read.  Do  y*u  know  what  occasioned  their  passage,  and  ren- 
ders their  stringent  enforcement  necessary  ?  I  can  tell  you. 
It  was  the  abolition  agitation.  If  the  slave  is  not  allowed  to 
read  his  bible,  the  sin  rests  upon  the  abolitionists  ;  for  they 
stand  prepared  to  furnish  him  with  a  key  to  it,  which  would 
make  it,  not  a  book  of  hope,  and  love,  and  peace,  but  of  des- 
pair, hatred  and  blood;  which  would  convert  the  reader,  not 
into  a  Christian,  but  a  demon.  To  preserve  him  from  such  a 
horrid  destiny,  it  is  a  sacred  duty  which  we  owe  to  our  slaves, 
not  less  than  to  ourselves,  to  interpose  the  most  decisive 
means.  If  the  Catholics  deem  it  wrong  to  trust  the  bible  to 
the  hands  of  ignorance,  shall  we  be  excommunicated  because 
we  will  not  give  it,  and  with  it  the  corrupt  and  fatal  commen- 
taries of  the  abolitionists,  to  our  slaves?  Allow  our  slaves  to 
read  your  writings,  stimulating  them  to  cut  our  throats  !  Can 
you  believe  us  to  be  such  unspeakable  fools  \ 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  125 

I  do  not  know  that  I  can  subscribe  in  full  to  the  sentiment 
so  often  quoted  by  the  abolitionists,  and  by  Mr.  Dickinson  in 
his  letter  to  me :  "  Homo  sum  humani  nihil  a  me  alienum 
puto"  as  translated  and  practically  illustrated  by  them.  Such 
a  doctrine  would  give  wide  authority  .to  every  one  for  the  most 
dangerous  intermeddling  with  the  affairs  of  others.  It  will  do 
in  poetry — perhaps  in  some  sorts  of  philosophy — but  the  at- 
tempt to  make  it  a  household  maxim,  and  introduce  it  into 
the  daily  walks  of  life,  has  caused  many  a  "  homo  "  a  broken 
crown  ;  and  probably  will  continue  to  do  it.  Still,  though  a 
slaveholder,  I  freely  acknowledge  my  obligations  as  a  man  ; 
and  that  I  am  bound  to  treat  humanely  the  fellow-creatures 
whom  God  has  entrusted  to  my  charge.  I  feel,  therefore, 
somewhat  sensitive  under  the  accusation  of  cruelty,  and  dis- 
posed to  defend  myself  and  fellow-slaveholders  against  it.  It 
is  certainly  the  interest  of  all,  and'  I  am  convinced  that  it  is 
also  the  desire  of  every  one  of  us,  to  treat  our  slaves  with 
proper  kindness.  It  is  necessary  to  our  deriving  the  greatest 
amount  of  profit  from  them.  Of  this  we  are  all  satisfied. 
And  you  snatch  from  us  the  only  consolation  we  Americans 
could  derive  from  the  opprobrious  imputation  of  being  wholly 
devoted  to  making  money,  which  your  disinterested  and  gold- 
despising  countrymen  delight  to  cast  upon  us,  when  you 
nevertheless  declare  that  we  are  ready  to  sacrifice  it  for  the 
pleasure  of  being  inhuman.  You  remember  that  Mr.  Pitt 
could  not  get  over  the  idea  that  self-interest  would  ensure 
kind  treatment  to  slaves,  until  you  told  him  your  woful  stories 
of  the  middle  passage.  Mr.  Pitt  was  right  in  the  first  in- 
stance, and  erred,  under  your  tuition,  in  not  perceiving  the 
difference  between  a  temporary  and  permanent  ownership  of 
them.  Slaveholders  are  no  more  perfect  than  other  men. 
They  have  passions.  Some  of  them,  as  you  may  suppose,  do 
not  at  all  times  restrain  them.  Neither  do  husbands,  parents 
11* 


126  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

and  friends.  And  in  each  of  these  relations,  as  serious  suffer- 
ing as  frequently  arises  from  uncontrolled  passions,  as  ever 
does  in  that  of  master  and  slave,  and  with  as  little  chance  of 
indemnity.  Yet  you  would  not  on  that  account  break  them 
up.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  our  slaveholders  are 
kind  masters,  as  men  usually  are  kind  husbands,  parents  and 
friends — as  a  general  rule,  kinder,  A  bad  master — he  who 
overworks  his  slaves,  provides  ill  for  them,  or  treats  them  with 
undue  severity — loses  the  esteem  and  respect  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  to  as  great  an  extent  as  he  would  for  the  violation  of 
any  of  his  social  and  most  of  his  moral  obligations.  What 
the  most  perfect  plan  of  management  would  be,  is  a  problem 
hard  to  solve.  From  the  commencement  of  Slavery  in  this 
country,  this  subject  has  occupied  the  minds  of  all  slavehold- 
ers, as  much  as  the  improvement  of  the  general  condition  of 
mankind  has  those  of  the  most  ardent  philanthropists ;  and 
the  greatest  progressive  amelioration  of  the  system  has  been 
effected.  You  yourseF  acknowledge  that  in  the  early  part  of 
your  career  you  were  exceedingly  anxious  for  the  immediate 
abolition  of  the  slave  trade,  lest  those  engaged  in  it  should  so 
mitigate  its  evils  as  to  destroy  the  force  of  your  arguments 
and  facts.  The  improvement  you  then  dreaded  has  gone  on 
steadily  here,  and  would  doubtless  have  taken  place  in  the 
slave  trade,  but  for  the  measures  adopted  to  suppress  it. 

Of  late  years  we  have  been  not  only  annoyed,  bat  greatly 
embarrassed  in  this  matter,  by  the  abolitionists.  We  have 
been  compelled  to  curtail  some  privileges ;  we  have  been  de- 
barred from  granting  new  ones.  In  the  face  of  discussions 
which  aim  at  loosening  all  ties  between  master  and  slave,  we 
have  in  some  measure  to  abandon  our  efforts  to  attach  them 
to  us,  and  control  them  through  their  affections  and  pride. 
WTe  have  to  rely  more  and  more  on  the  power  of  fear.  We 
must,  in  all  our  intercourse  with  them,  assert  and  maintain 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  127 

strict  mastery,  and  impress  it  on  them  that  they  are  slaves. 
This  is  painful  to  us,  and  certainly  no  present  advantage  to 
them.  But  it  is  the  direct  consequence  of  the  abolition  agi- 
tation. We  are  determined  to  continue  masters,  and  to  do  so 
we  have  to  draw  the  rein  tighter  and  tighter  day  by  day  to 
be  assured  that  we  hold  them  in  complete  check.  How  far 
this  process  will  go  on,  depends  wholly  and  solely  on  the 
abolitionists.  When  they  desist,  we  can  relax.  We  may  not 
before.  I  do  not  mean  by  all  this  to  say  that  we  are  in  a 
state  of  actual  alarm  and  fear  of  our  slaves  ;  but  under  exist- 
ing circumstances  we  should  be  ineffably  stupid  not  to  in- 
crease our  vigilance  and  strengthen  our  hands.  You  see 
some  of  the  fruits  of  your  labors.  I  speak  freely  and  candid- 
ly— not  as  a  colonist,  who,  though  a  slaveholder,  has  a  mas- 
ter ;  but  as  a  free  white  man,  holding,  under  God,  and  resolv- 
ed to  hold,  my  fate  in  my  own  hands ;  and  I  assure  you  that 
my  sentiments,  and  feelings,  and  determinations,  are  those  of 
every  slaveholder  in  this  country. 

The  research  and  ingenuity  of  the  abolitionists,  aided  by 
the  invention  of  runaway  slaves — in  which  faculty,  so  far  as 
improvizing  falsehood  goes,  the  African  race  is  without  a  rival 
— have  succeeded  in  shocking  the  world  with  a  small  number 
of  pretended  instances  of  our  barbarity.  The  only  wonder  is, 
that  considering  the  extent  of  our  country,  the  variety  of  our 
population,  its  fluctuating  character,  and  the  publicity  of  all 
our  transactions,  the  number  of  cases  is  so  small.  It  speaks 
well  for  us.  Yet  of  these,  many  are  false,  all  highly  colored, 
some  occurring  half  a  century,  most  of  them  many  years  ago  ; 
and  no  doubt  a  large  proportion  of  them  perpetrated  by 
foreigners.  With  a  few  rare  exceptions,  the  emigrant  Scotch 
and  English  are  the  worst  masters  among  us,  and  next  to 
them  our  Northern  fellow-citizens.  Slaveholders  born  and 
bred  here  are  always  more  humane  to  slaves,  and  those  who 


128  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SL AVERT. 

have  grown  up  to  a  large  inheritance  of  them,  the  most  so  of 
any — showing  clearly  that  the  effect  of  the  system  is  to  foster 
kindly  feelings.  I  do  not  me^n  so  much  to  impute  innate 
inhumanity  to  foreigners,  as  to  show  that  they  come  here 
•with  false  notions  of  the  treatment  usual  and  necessary  for 
slaves,  and  that  newly  acquired  power  here,  as  everywhere 
else,  is  apt  to  be  abused.  I  cannot  enter  into  a  detailed  ex- 
amination of  the  cases  stated  by  the  abolitionists.  It  would 
be  disgusting,  and  of  little  avail.  I  know  nothing  of  them.  I 
have  seen  nothing  like,  them,  though  born  and  bred  here,  and 
have  rarely  heard  of  anything  at  all  to  be  compared  to  them. 
Permit  me  to  say  that  I  think  most  of  your  facts  must  have 
been  drawn  from  the  West  Indies,  where  undoubtedly  slaves 
were  treated  much  more  harshly  than  with  us.  This  was 
owing  to  a  variety  of  causes,  which  might,  if  necessary,  be 
stated.  One  was,  that  they  had  at  first  to  deal  more  exten- 
sively with  barbarians  fresh  from  the  wilds  of  Africa ;  another, 
and  a  leading  one,  the  absenteeism  of  proprietors.  Agents 
are  always  more  unfeeling  than  owners,  whether  placed  over 
West  Indian  or  American  slaves,  or  Irish  tenantry.  We  feel 
this  evil  greatly  even  here.  You  describe  the  use  of  thumb 
screws,  as  one  mode  of  punishment  among  us.  I  doubt  if  a 
thumb  screw  can  be  found  in  America.  I  never  saw  or  heard 
of  one  in  this  country.  Stocks  are  rarely  used  by  private  in- 
dividuals, and  confinement  still  more  seldom,  though  both  are 
common  punishments  for  whites,  all  the  world  over.  I  think 
they  should  be  more  frequently  resorted  to  with  slaves,  as 
substitutes  for  flogging,  which  I  consider  the  most  injurious 
and  least  efficacious  mode  of  punishing  them  for  serious  of- 
fences. It  is  not  degrading,  and  unless  excessive,  occasions 
little  pain.  You  may  be  a  little  astonished,  after  all  the 
flourishes  that  have  been  made  about  "  cart  whips,"  &c.,  when 
I  say  flogging  is  not  the  most  degrading  punishment  in  the 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  129 

world.  It  may  be  so  to  a  white  man  in  most  countries,  but 
how  is  it  to  the  white  boy  ?  That  necessary  coadjutor  of  tb.0 
schoolmaster,  the  "  birch,"  is  never  thought  to  have  rendered 
infamous  the  unfortunate  victim  of  pedagogue  ire ;  nor  did 
Solomon  in  his  wisdom  dream  that  he  was  counselling  parents 
to  debase  their  offspring,  when  he  exhorted  them  not  to  spoil 
the  child  by  sparing  the  rod.  Pardon  me  for  recurring  to  the 
now  exploded  ethics  of  the  Bible.  Custom,  which,  you  will 
perhaps  agree,  makes  most  things  in  this  world  good  or  evil, 
has  removed  all  infamy  from  the  punishment  of  the  lash  to 
the  slave.  Your  blood  boils  at  the  recital  of  stripes  inflicted 
on  a  man;  and  you  think  you  should  be  frenzied  to  see  .your 
own  child  flogged.  Yet  see  how  completely  this  is  ideal, 
arising  from  the  fashions  of  society.  You  doubtless  submit- 
ted to  the  rod  yourself,  in  other  years,  when  the  smart  was 
perhaps  as  severe  as  it  would  be  now  ;  and  you  have  never 
been  guilty  of  the  folly  of  revenging  yourself  on  the  Precep- 
tor, who,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  "irresponsible  power,"  thought 
proper  to  chastise  your  son.  So  it  is  with  the  negro,  and  the 
negro  father. 

As  to  chains  and  irons,  they  are  rarely  used  ;  never,  I  be- 
lieve, except  in  cases  of  running  away.  You  will  admit  that 
if  we  pretend  to  own  slaves,  they  must  not  be  permitted  to 
abscond  whenever  they  see  fit ;  and  that  if  nothing  else  will 
prevent  it,  these  means  must  be  resorted  to.  See  the  inhu- 
manity necessarily  arising  from  Slavery,  you  will  exclaim. 
Are  such  restraints  imposed  on  no  other  class  of  people,  giving 
no  more  offence  ?  Look  to  your  army  and  navy.  If  your 
seamen,  impressed  from  their  peaceful  occupations,  and  your 
soldiers,  recruited  at  the  gin-shops — both  of  them  as  much 
kidnapped  as  the  most  unsuspecting  victim  of  the  slave  trade, 
and  doomed  to  a  far  more  wretched  fate — if  these  men  mani- 
fest a  propensity  to  desert,  the  heaviest  manacles  are  their 


130  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

mildest  punishment.  It  is  most  commonly  death,  after  sum- 
mary trial.  But  armies  and  navies,  you  say,  are  indispen- 
sable, and  .must  be  kept  up  at  every  sacrifice.  I  answer, 
that  they  are  no  more  indispensable  than  Slavery  is  to  us — 
and  to  you  ;  for  you  have  enough  of  it  in  your  country,  though 
the  form  and  name  differ  from  ours. 

Depend  upon  it  that  many  things,  and  in  regard  to  our 
slaves,  most  things  which  appear  revolting  at  a  distance,  and 
to  slight  reflection,  would,  on  a  nearer  view  and  impartial 
comparison  with  the  customs  and  conduct  of  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, strike  you  in  a  very  different  light.  .Remember  that 
on  our  estates  we  dispense  with  the  whole  machinery  of  pub- 
lic police  and  public  courts  of  justice.  Thus  we  try,  decide, 
and  execute  the  sentences,  in  thousands  of  cases,  which  in 
other  countries  would  go  into  the  courts.  Hence,  most  of  the 
acts  of  our  alleged  cruelty,  which  have  any  foundation  in 
truth.  Whether  our  patriarchal  mode  of  administering  jus- 
tice is  less  humane  than  the  Assizes,  can  only  be  determined 
by  careful  enquiry  and  comparison.  But  this  is  never  done 
by  the  abolitionists.  /  All  our  punishments  are  the  -outrages  of 
"  irresponsible  power."  If  a  man  steals  a  pig  in  England,  he 
is  transported — torn  from  wife,  children,  parents,  and  sent  to 
the  antipodes,  infamous,  and  an  outcast  forever,  though  pro- 
bably he  took  from  the  superabundance  of  his  neighbor  to 
s?ve  the  lives  of  his  famishing  little  ones.  If  one  of  our  well 
fed  negroes,  merely  for  the  sake  of  fresh  meat,  steals  a  pig,  he 
gets  perhaps  forty  stripes,  if  one  of  your  cottagers  breaks 
into  another's  house,  he  is  hung  for  burglary.  If  a  slave  does 
the  same  here,  a  few  lashes,  or  it  may  be,  a  few  hours  in  the 
stocks,  settles  the  matter.  Are  our  courts  or  yours  the  most 
humane?  If  Slavery  were  not  in  question,  you  would  doubt- 
less say  ours  is  mistaken  lenit}7.  Perhaps  it  often  is  ;  and 
slaves  too  lightly  dealt  with  sometimes  grow  daring.  Occa- 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ox  SLAVERY.  131 

sionally,  though  rarely,  and  almost  always  in  consequence  of 
excessive  indulgence,  an  individual  rebels.  This  is  the  high- 
eat  crime  he  can  commit.  It  is  treason.  It  strikes  at  the  - 
root  of  our  whole  system.  His  life  is  justly  forfeited,  though 
it  is' never  intentionally  taken,  unless  after  trial  in  our  public 
courts.  Sometime*,  however,  in  capturing,  or  in  self-defence, 
he  is  unfortunately  killed.  ,  A  legal  investigation  always  fol- 
lows. But,  terminate  as  it  may,  the  abolitionists  raise  a  hue 
and  cry,  and  another  "  shocking  case  "  is  held  up  to  the  in- 
dignation of  the  world  by  tender-hearted  male  and  female 
philanthropists,  who  would  have  thought  all  right  had  the 
master's  throat  been  cut,  and  would  have  triumphed  in  it. 

I  cannot  go  into  a  detailed  comparison  between  the  penal- 
ties inflicted  on  a  slave  in  our  patriarchal  courts,  and  those  of 
the  Courts  of  Sessions,  to  which  freemen  are  sentenced  in  all 
civilized  nations  ;  but  I  know  well  that  if  there  is  any  fault  in 
our  criminal  code,  it  is  that  of  excessive  mildness. 

Perhaps  a  few  general  facts  will  best  illustrate  the  treat- 
ment this  race  receives  at  our  hands.  It  is  acknowledged  that 
it  increases  at  least  as  rapidly  as  the  white.  I  believe  it  is  an 
established  law,  that  population  thrives  in  proportion  to  its 
comforts.  But  when  it  is  considered  that  these  people  are  not 
recruited  by  immigration  from  abroad,  as  the  whites  are,  and 
that  they  are  usually  settled  on  our  richest  and  least  healthy 
lands,  the  fact  of  their  equal  comparative  increase  and  great- 
er longevity,  outweighs  a  thousand  abolition  falsehoods,  in 
favor  of  the  leniency  and  providence  of  our  management  of 
them.  It  is  also  admitted  that  there  are  incomparably  fewer 
cases  of  insanity  and  suicide  among  them  than  among  the 
whites.  The  fact  is,  that  among  the  slaves  of  the  African 
race  these  things  are  almost  wholly  unknown.  However  fre- 
quent suicide  may  have  been  among  those  brought  from  Afri- 
ca, I  can  say  that  in  my  time  I  cannot  remember  to  have 


* 

HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

known  or  heard  of  a  single  instance  of  deliberate  self-destruc- 
tion, and  but  of  one  of  suicide  at  all.  As  to  insanity,  I  have 
seen  but  one  permanent  case  of  it,  and  that  twenty  years  ago. 
It  cannot  be  doubted  that  among  three  millions  of  people  there 
must  be  some  insane  and  some  suicides  ;  but  I  will  venture 
to  say  that  more  cases  of  both  occur  annually  among  every 
hundred  thousand  of  the  population  of  Great  Britain,  than 
among  all  our  slaves.  Can  it  be  possible,  then,  that  they  exist 
in  that  state  of  abject  misery,  goaded  by  constant  injuries, 
outraged  in  their  affections,  and  worn  down  with  hardships, 
which  the  abolitionists  depict,  and  so  many  ignorant  and 
thoughtless  persons  religiously  believe  ? 

With  regard  to  the  separation  of  husbands  and  wives,  pa- 
rents and  children,  nothing  can  be  more  untrue  than  the 
inferences  drawn  from  what  is  so  constantly  harped  on  by 
abolitionists.  Some  painful  instances  perhaps  may  occur. 
Very  few  that  can  be  prevented.  It  is,  and  it  always  has  been, 
an  object  of  prime  consideration  with  our  slaveholders,  to  keep 
families  together.  Negroes  are  themselves  both  perverse  and 
comparatively  indifferent  about  this  matter.  It  is  a  singular 
trait,  that  they  almost  invariably  prefer  forming  connexions 
with  slaves  belonging  to  other  masters,  and  at  some  distance. 
It  is,  therefore,  impossible  to  prevent  separations  sometimes, 
by  the  removal  of  one  owner,  his  -death,  or  failure,  and  dis- 
persion of  his  property.  In  all  such  cases,  however,  every 
reasonable  effort  is  made  to  keep  the  parties  together,  if  they 
desire  it.  And  the  negroes  forming  these  connexions,  know- 
ing the  chances  of  their  premature  dissolution,  rarely  com- 
plain more'  than  we  all  do  of  the  inevitable  strokes  of  fate. 
Sometimes  it  happens  that  a  negro  prefers  to  give  up  his 
family  rather  than  separate  from  his  master.  I  have  known 
such  instances.  As  to  wilfully  selling  off  a  husband,  or  wife, 
or  child,  I  believe  it  is  rarely,  very  rarely  done,  except  when 


, 
HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  133 

some  offence  has  been  committed  demanding  "transporta- 
tion." At  sales  of  estates,  and  even  at  Sheriff's  sales,  they 
are  always,  if  possible,  sold  in  families.  On  the  whole,  not- 
withstanding the  migratory  character  of  our  population,  I 
believe  there  are  more  families  among  our  slaves,  who  have 
lived  and  died  together  without  losing  a  single  member  from 
their  circle,  except  by  the  process  of  nature,  and  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  constant,  uninterrupted  communion,  than  have  flour- 
ished in  the  same  space  of  time,  and  among  the  same  num- 
ber of  civilized  people  in  modern  times.  And  to  sum  up  all, 
if  pleasure  is  correctly  defined  to  be  the  absence  of  pain — 
•which,  so  far  as  the  great  body  of  mankind  is  concerned,  is 
undoubtedly  its  true  definition — I  believe  our  slaves  are  the 
happiest  three  millions  of  human  beings  on  whom  the  sun 
shines.  Into  their  Eden  is  coming  Satan  in  the  guise  of  an. 
abolitionist. 

As  regards  their  religious  condition,  it  is  well  known  that 
a  majority  of  the  communicants  of  the  Methodist  and  Baptist 
churches  of  the  South  are  colored.  Almost  everywhere  they 
have  precisely  the  same  opportunities  of  attending  worship 
that  the  whites  have,  and,  besides  special  occasions  for  them- 
selves exclusively,  which  they  prefer.  In  many  places  not  so 
accessible  to  clergymen  in  ordinary,  missionaries  are  sent,  and 
mainly  supported  by  their  masters,  for  the  particular  benefit 
of  the  slaves.  There  are  none  I  imagine  who  may  not,  if  they 
like,  hear  the  gospel  preached  at  least  once  a  month — most 
of  them  twice  a  month,  and  very  many  every  week.  In  our 
thinly  settled  country  the  whites  fare  no  better.  But  in  ad- 
dition to -this,  on  plantations  of  any  size,  the  slaves  who  have 
joined  the  church  are  formed  into  a  class,  at  the  head  of 
•which  is  placed  one  of  their  number,  acting  as  deacon  or 
leader,  who  is  also  sometimes  a  licensed  preacher.  This  class 
assembles  for  religious  exercises  -weekly,  semi-weekly,  or  often- 
12 


134  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

er,  if  the  members  choose.  In  some  parts,  also,  Sunday 
schools  for  blacks  are  established,  and  Bible  classes  are  orally 
instructed  by  discreet  and  pious  persons.  Now  where  will 
you  find  a  laboring  population  possessed  of  greater  religious 
advantages  than  these  ?  Not  in  London,  I  am  sure,  where  it 
is  known  that  your  churches,  chapels,  and  religious  meeting- 
houseS,  of  all  sorts,  cannot  contain  one-half  of  the  inhabitants. 
I  have  admitted,  without  hesitation,  what  it  would  be  un- 
true and  profitless  to  deny,  that  slaveholders  are  responsible 

to  the  world  for  the  humane  treatment  of  the  fellow-beings 

> 
whom  God  has  placed  in  their  hands.     I  think  it  would  be 

only  fair  for  you  to  admit,  what  is  equally  undeniable,  that 
every  man  in  independent  circumstances,  all  the  world  over, 
and  every  government,  is  to  the  same  extent  responsible  to 
the  whole  human  family,  for  the  condition  of  the  poor  and 
laboring  classes  in  their  own  country,  and  around  them, 
wherever  they  may  be  placed,  to  whom  God  has  denied  the 
advantages  he  has  given  themselves.  If  so,  it  would  naturally 
seem  the  duty  of  true  humanity  and  rational  philanthropy  to 
devote  their  time  and  labor,-  their  thoughts,  writings  and 
charity,  first  to  the  objects  placed  as  it  were  under  their  own 
immediate  charge.  And  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  clear  eva- 
sion and  skilful  neglect  of  this  cardinal  duty,  to  pass  from 
those  whose  destitute  situation  they  can  plainly  see,  minutely 
examine  and  efficiently  relieve,  to  enquire  after  the  condition 
of  others  in  no  way  entrusted  to  their  care,  to  exaggerate 
evils  of  which  they  cannot  be  cognizant,  to  expend  aH  their 
sympathies  and  exhaust  all  their  energies  on  these  remote 
objects  of  their  unnatural,  not  to  say  dangerous,  benevolence  ; 
and  finally,  to  calumniate,  denounce,  and  endeavor  to  excite 
the  indignation  of  the  world  against  their  unoffending  fellow- 
creatures  for  not  hastening,  under  their  dictation,  to  redress 
wrongs  which  are  stoutly  and  truthfully  denied,  while 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  135 

themselves  go  but  little  farther  in  alleviating  those  chargeable 
on  them  than  openly  and  unblushingly  to  acknowledge  them. 
There  may  be  indeed  assort  of  merit  in  doing  so  much  as  to 
make  such  an  acknowledgment,  but  it  must  be  very  modest 
if  it  expects  appreciation. 

Now  I  affirnr,  that  in  Great  Britain  the  poor  and  laboring 
classes  of  your  own  race  and  color,  not  only  your  fellow- 
being's,  but  your  fellow-citizens,  are  more  miserable  and  de- 
graded, morally  and  physically,  than  our  slaves ;  to  be  eleva- 
ted to  the  actual  condition  of  whom,  would  be  to  these,  your 
fellow-citi2cns,2J£"*nos:t  glorious  act  of  emancipation.  And  I 
also  affirm,  that  the  poor  and  laboring  classes  of  our  older 
free  States  would  not  be  in  a  much  more  enviable  condition, 
but  for  our  Slavery.  One  of  their  own  Senators  has  declared 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  "  that  the  repeal  of  the  Tariff 
would  reduce  New-England  to  a  howling  wilderness."  And 
the  American  Tariff  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  system  by 
which  the  slave  States  are  plundered  for  the  benefit  of  those 
States  which  do  not  tolerate  Slavery. 

To  prove  what  I  say  of  Grea$Britaih  to  be  true,  I  make  the 
following  extracts  from  the  Reports  of  Commissioners  ap- 
pointed by  Parliament,  and  published  by  order  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  I  can  make  but  few  and  short  ones.  But  simi-  . 
lar  ^notations  might  be  made  to  any  extent,  and  I  defy  you 
to  deny  that  these  specimens  exhibit  the  real  condition  of  your 
operatives  in  every  branch  of  your  industry.  There  is  of 
course  a  variety  in  their  sufferings.  But  the  same  incredible 
amount  of  toil,  frightful  destitution,  and  utter  want  of  morals, 
characterize  the  lot  of  every  class  of  them. 

Collieries. — "  I  wish  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Board  to 
the  pits  about  Brampton.  The  seams  are  so  thin  that  several 
of  them  have  only  two  feet  headway  to  all  the  working.  They 
are  worked  altogether  by  boys  from  eight  to  twelve  years  of 


136  HAMMOXD'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

age,  on.  all-fours,  with  a  dog  belt  and  chain.  The  passages 
being  neither  ironed  nor  wooded,  and  often  an  inch  or  two 
thick  with  mud.  In  Mr.  Barnes'  pit  these  poor  boys  have  to 
drag  the  barrows  with  one  hundred  Aveight  of  coal  or  slack 
sixty  times  a  clay  sixty  yards,  and  the  empty  barrows  back, 
without  once  straightening  their  backs,  unless  they  choose  to 
stand  under  the  shaft,  and  run  the  risk  of  having  their  heads 
broken  by  a  falling  coal." — Report  on  Mines,  1842,  p.  71.  "  In 
Shropshire  the  seams  are  no  more  than  eighteen  or  twenty 
inches." — Ibid,  p.  67.  "At  the  Booth  pit,"  says  Mr.  Scriven, 
"  I  walked,  rode,  and  crept  eighteen  hundred  yards  to  one  of 
the  nearest  faces." — Ibid.  "  Chokedamp,  firedamp,  wild  fire, 
sulphur  and  water,  at  all  times  menace  instant  death  to  the 
laborers  in  these  mines."  "  Robert  North,  aged  16:  Went 
into  the  pit  at  seven  years  of  age,  to  fill  up  skips.  I  drew 
about  twelve  months.  When  I  drew  by  the  girdle  and  chain 
my  skin  was  broken,  and  the  blood  ran  down.  I  durst  not 
say  anything.  If  we  said  anything,  the  butty,  and  the  reeve, 
who  works  under  him,  would  take  a  stick  and  beat  us." — Ibid. 
"  The  usual  punishment  for  theft  is  to  place  the  culprit's  head 
between  the  legs  of  one  of  the  biggest  bors,  and  each 
boy  in  the  pit — sometimes  there  are  twenty — inflicts  twelve 
lashes  on  the  back  and  rump  with  a  cat." — Ibid.  "  Instances 
occur  in  which  children  are  taken  into  these  mines  to  work  as 
early  as  four  years  of  age,  sometimes  at  five,  not  unfrequently 
at  six  and  seven,  while  from  eight  to  nine  is  the  ordinary  age 
at  which  these  employments  commence." — Ibid.  "  The  wages 
paid  at  these  mines  is  from  two  dollars  fifty  cents  to  seven 
dollars  fifty  cents  per  month  for  laborers,  according  to  age  and 
ability,  and  out  of  this  they  must  support  themselves.  They 
work  twelve  hours'  a  day." — Ibid. 

In  Calico  Printing, — "  It  is  by  no  means  uncommon  in  all 
the  districts  for  children  five  or  six  years  old  to  be  kept  at 


HA.MMOND  S    LETTERS    ON    SLAVERY.  137 

work  fourteen  to  sixteen  hours  consecutively." — Report  on 
Children,  1842,  p.  59. 

-  I  could  furnish  extracts  similar  to  these  in  regard  to  every 
branch  of  your  manufactures,  but  I  will  not  multiply  them. 
Everybody  knows  that  your  operatives  habitually  labor  from? 
twelve  to  sixteen  hours,  men,  women,  and  children,  and  the 
men  occasionally  twenty  hours  per  day.  In  lace-making,  says 
the  last  quoted  report,  children  sometimes  commence  work  at 
two  years  of  age. 

Destitution. — It  is  stated  by  your  Commissioners  that  forty 
thousand  persons  in  Liverpool,  and  fifteen  thousand  in  Man- 
chester, live  in  cellars;  while  twenty-two  thousand  in  England 
pass  the  night  in  barns,  tents,  or  the  open  air.  "  There  have 
been  found  such  occurrences  as  seven,  eight,  and  ten  persons 
in  one  cottage,  I  cannot  say  for  one  day,  but  for  whole  days, 
without  a  morsel  of  food.  They  have  remained  on  their  beds 
of  straw  for  two  successive  days,  under  the  impression  that  in 
a  recumbent  posture  the  pangs  of  hunger  were  less  felt." — 
Lord  Brougham's  Speech,  II tk  July,  1842.  A  volume  of 
frightful  scenes  might  be  quoted  to  corroborate  the  inferences 
to-be  necessarily  drawn  from  the  facts  here  stated.  I  will  not 
add  more,  but  pass  on  to  the  important  enquiry  as  to 

Morals  and  Education. — "Elizabeth  Barrett,  aged  14:  I. 
always  work  without  stockings,  shoes,  or  trowsers.  I  wear 
nothing  but  a  shift.  I  have  to  go  up  to  the  headings  with 
the  men.  They  are  all  naked  there.  I  am  got  used  to  that." — 
Report  on  Mines.  "  As  to  illicit  sexual  intercourse  it  seems 
to  prevail  universally,  and  from  an  early  period  of  life."  "  The 
evidence  might  have  been  doubled,  which  attest  the  early 
commencement  of  sexual  and  promiscuous  intercourse  among 
boys  and  girls."  "  A  lower  condition  of  morals,  in  the  fullest 
sense  of  the  term,  could  not,  I  think,  be  found.  I  do  not 
mean  by  this  that  there  are  many  more  prominent  vices 
12* 


138  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

among  them,  but  that  moral  feelings  and  sentiments  do  not 
exist.    .They  have  no  morals?     "  Their  appearance,  manners, 
and  moral  natures — so  far  as  the  word  moral  can  be  applied 
to  them — are  in  accordance  with  their  half-civilized  condition." 
— Report  on  Children.     "  More  than  half  a  dozen  instances 
occurred  in  Manchester,  where  a  man,  his  wife,  and  his  wife's 
grown-up  sister,  habitually  occupied  the  same  bed." — Report 
on  Sanitary  Condition.     "  Robert  Crucilow,  aged  16  :  I  don't 
know  anything  of  Moses — never  heard  of  France.     I  don't 
know  what  America  is.     Never  heard  of  Scotland  or  Ireland. 
Can't  tell  how  many  weeks   there  are  in  a  year.     There  are 
twelve  pence  in  a  shilling,  and  twenty  shillings  in  a  pound. 
There  are  eight  pints  in  a  gallon  of  ale." — Report  on  Mines. 
"Ann  Eggly,  aged  18:1  walk  about  and  get  fresh  air  on  Sun- 
days. I  never  go  to  church  or  chapel.  I  never  heard  of  Christ 
at  all." — Ibid.     Others':  "The  Lord  sent  Adam  and  Eve  on 
earth  to  save  sinners."  "  J  don't  know  who  made  the  world;  I 
never  heard  about  God."     "I  don't  know  Jesus   Christ — I 
never  saw  him — but  1  have  seen  Foster  who  prays  about 
him."  .    "Employer  :  You  have  expressed  surprise  at  Thomas 
Mitchel's  not  hearing  of  God.     I  judge  there  are  few  colliers 
here  about  that  have." — Ibid.     I  will  quote  no  more.     It  is 
shocking  beyond  endurance  to    turn  over  your  records,  in 
which  the  condition  of  your  laboring  classes  is  but  too  faith- 
fully depicted.     Could  our  slaves  but  see  it,  they  would  join 
us  in  lynching  the  abolitionists,  which,  by  the  by,  they  would 
not  now  be  loth  to  do.     We  never  think  of  imposing  on  them 
such  labor,  either  in  amount  or  kind.     We  never  put  them  to 
any  ^vork,  under  ten,  more  generally  at  twelve  years  of  age, 
and  then  the  very   lightest.     Destitution  is  absolutely  un- 
known— never  did  a  slave  starve  in  America ;  while  in  moral 
sentiments  and  feelings,  in  religious  information,  and  even  in 
general  intelligence,  they  are  infinitely  the  superiors  of  your 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  osr  SLAVERY.  139 

operatives.  When  you  look  around  you,  ho\v  dare  you  talk 
to  us  before  the  world  of  Slavery  ?  For  the  condition  of 
your  wretched  laborers,  you,  and  every  Briton  who  is  not  one 
of  them,  are  responsible  before  God  and  man.  If  you  are 
really  humane,  philanthropic,  and  charitable,  here  are  objects 
for  you.  Relieve  them.  Emancipate  them. '  Raise  them  from 
the  condition  of  brutes,  to  the  level  of  human  beings — of 
American  slaves,  at  least.  Do  not  for  an  instant  suppose  that 
the  name  of  being  freemen  is  the  slightest  comfort  to  them, 
situated  as  they  are,  or  that  the  bombastic  boast  that  "  who- 
ever touches  British  soil  stands  redeemed,  regenerated,  and 
disenthralled,"  can  meet  with  anything  but  the  ridicule  and 
contempt  of  mankind,  while  that  soil  swarms,  both  on  and 
iinder  its  surface,  with  the  most  abject  and  degraded  wretches 
that  ever  bowed  beneath  the  oppressor's  yoke. 

I  have  said  that  Slavery  is  an  established  and  inevitable 
condition  to  human  society.  I  do  not  speak  of  the  name, 
but  the  fact.  The  Marquis  of  Normanby  has  lately  declared 
your  operatives  to  be  "  in  effect  slaves"  Can  it  be  denied  ? 
Probably,  for  such  philanthropists  as  your  abolitionists  care 
nothing  for  facts.  They  deal  in  terms  and  fictions.  It  is  the 
word  '•  slavery"  which  shocks  their  tender  sensibilities  ;  and 
their  imaginations  associate  it  with  "  hydras  and  chimeras 
dire."  The  thing  itself,  in  its  most  hideous  reality,  passes 
daily  under  their  view  unheeded — a  familiar  face,  touching  no 
chord  of  shame,  sympathy  or  indignation.  Yet  so  brutalizing 
is  your  iron  bondage  that  the  English  operative  is  a  bye-word 
through  the  world.  When  favoring  fortune  enables  him  to 
escape  his  prison  house,  both  in  Europe  and  America  he  is 
shunned.  With  all  the  skill  which  fourteen  hours  of  daily 
labor  from  the  tenderest  age  has  ground  into  him,  his  discon- 
tent, which  habit  has  made  second  nature,  and  his  depraved 
propensities,  running  riot  when  freed  from  his  wonted  fetters, 


140  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

prevent  bis  employment  whenever  it  is  not  a  matter  of  neces- 
sity. If  we  derived  no  other  benefit  from  African  Slavery  in 
the  Southern  States  than  that  it  deterred  your  freedmcn  from 
coming  hither,  I  should  regard  it  as  an  inestimable  blessing. 

And  how  unaccountable  is  that  philanthropy,  which  closes 
its  eyes  upon  such  a  state  of  things  as  you  have  at  home,  and 
turns  its  blurred  vision  to  our  affairs  beyond  the  Atlantic, 
meddling  with  matters  which  no  way  concern  them — pre- 
siding, as  you  have  lately  done,  at  meetings  to  denounce  the 
"  iniquity  of  our  laws"  and  "  the  atrocity  of  our  practices," 
and  to  sympathize  with  infamous  wretches  imprisoned  here 
for  violating  decrees  promulgated  both  by  God  and  man? 
Is  this  doing  the  work  of  "your  Father  which  is  in  heaven," 
or  is  it  seeking  only  "  that  you  may  have  glory  of  man  ?" 
Do  you  remember  the  denunciation  of  our  Saviour,  "  Woe 
unto  you,  Scribes  and  Pharisees ;  hypocrites  !  for  ye  make 
clean  the  outside  of  the  cup  and  platter,  but  within,  they  are 
full  of  extortion  aud  excess." 

But  after  alt,  supposing  that  every  thing  you  say  of  Slavery 
be  true,  and  its  abolition  a  matter  of  the  last  necessity,  how 
do  you  expect  to  effect  emancipation,  and  what  do  you  calcu- 
late will  be  the  result  of  its  accomplishment  ?  As  to  the 
means  to  be  used,  the  abolitionists,  I  believe,  affect  to  differ, 
a  large  proportion  of  them  pretending  that  their  sole  purpose 
is  to  apply  "  moral  suasion"  to  the  slaveholders  themselves. 
As  a  matter  of  curiosity,  I  should  like  to  know  what  their 
idea  of  this  "moral  suasion"  is.  Their  discourses — yours  is 
no  exception — are  all  tirades,  the  exordium,  argument  and 
peroration,  turning  on  the  epithets  "  tyrants,"  "  thieves," 
'•  murderers,"  addressed  to  us.  They  revile  us  as  "  atrocious 
monsters,"  "violators  of  the  laws  of  nature,  God  and  man," 
our  homes  the  abode  of  every  iniquity,  our  land  a  "  brothel." 
We  retort,  that  they  are  "  incendiaries"  and  "  assassins."  De- 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  141 

lightful  argument !  Sweet,  potent  "  moral  suasion  !"  What 
slave  lias  it  freed — what  proselyte  can  it  ever  make  ?  But  if 
your  course  was  wholly  different — if  you  distilled  nectar  from 
your  lips,  and  discoursed  sweetest  music,  could  you  reasonably 
indulge  the  hope  of  accomplishing  your  object  by  such 
means?  Nay,  supposing  that  we  were  all  convinced,  and 
thought  of  Slavery  precisely  as  you  do,  at  what  era  of  "moral 
suasion"  do  you  imagine  you  could  prevail  on  us  to  give  up  a 
thousand  millions  of  dollars  in  the  value  of  our  slaves,  and  a 
thousand  millions  of  dollars  more  in  the  depreciation  of  our 
lands,  in  consequence  of  the  want  of  laborers  to  cultivate 
them  ?  Consider  :  were  ever  any  people,  civilized  or  savage, 
persuaded  by  any  argument,  human  or  divine,  to  surrender 
voluntarily  two  thousand  millions  of  dollars  ?  Would  you 
think  of  asking  five  millions  of  Englishmen  to  contribute, 
either  at  once  or  gradually,  four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of 
pounds  sterling  to  the  cause  of  philanthropy,  even  if  the  pur- 
pose to  be  accomplished  was  not  of  doubtful  goodness  ?  If 
you  are  prepared  to  undertake  such  a  scheme,  try  it  at  home. 
Collect  your  fund — return  us  the  money  for  our  slaves,  and 
do  with  them  as  you  like.  Be  all  the  glory  yours,  fairly  and 
honestly  won.  But  you  see  the  absurdity  of  such  an  idea. 
Away,  then,  with  your  pretended  "  moral  suasion."  You  know 
it  is  mere  nonsense.  The  abolitionists  have  no  faith  in  it 
themselves.  Those  who  expect  to  accomplish  any  thing  count 
on  means  altogether  different.  They  aim,  first,  to  alarm  us  : 
that  failing,  to  compel  us  by  force  to  emancipate  our  slaves, 
at  our  own  risk  and  cost.  To  these  purposes  they  obviously 
direct  all  their  energies.  Our  Northern  liberty  men  endea- 
vored to  disseminate  their  destructive  doctrine  among  our 
slaves,  and  excite  them  to  insurrection.  But  we  have  put  an 
end  to  that,  and  stricken  terror  into  them.  They  dare  not 
show  their  faces  here.  Then  they  declared  they  would  dis- 


142  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

solve  the  Union.  Let  them  do  it.  The  North  would  repent 
it  far  more  than  the  South.  We  are  not  alarmed  at  the  idea. 
We  are  well  content  to  give  up  the  Union  sooner  than  sacri- 
fice two  thousand  millions  of  dollars,  and  with  them  all  the 
rights  we  prize.  You  may  take  it  for  granted  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  persuade  or  alarm  us  into  emancipation,  or  to 
making  the  first  step  towards  it.  Nothing,  then,  is  left  to  try, 
but  sheer  force.  If  the  abolitionists  are  prepared  to  expend 
their  own  treasure  and  shed  their  own  blood  as  freely  as  they 
ask  us  to  do  ours,  let  them  come.  We  do  not  court  the  con- 
flict ;  but  we~will  not  and  we  cannot  shrink  from  it.  If  they 
are  not  ready  to  go  so  far  ;  if,  as  I  expect,  their  philanthropy 
recoils  from  it ;  if  they  are  looking  only  for  cheap  glory,  let 
them  turn  their  thoughts  elsewhere,  and  leave  us  in  peace. 
Be  the  sin,  the  danger  and  the  evils  of  Slavery  all  our  own. 
We  compel,  we  ask  none  to  share  them  with  us. 

I  am  well  aware  that  a  notable  scheme  has  been  set  on  foot 
to  achieve  abolition  by  making  what  is  by  courtesy  called 
"  free"  labor  so  much  cheaper  than  slave  labor  as  to  force  the 
abandonment  of  the  latter.  Though  we  are  beginning  to 
manufacture  with  slaves,  I  do  not  think  you  will  attempt  to 
pinch  your  operatives  closer  in  Great  Britain.  You  cannot 
curtail  the  rags  with  which  they  vainly  attempt  to  cover  their 
nakedness,  nor  reduce  the  porridge  wh'ch  barely,  and  not 
always,  keeps  those  who  have  employment  from  perishing  of 
famine.  When  you  can  do  this,  we  will  consider  whether 
our  slaves  may  not  dispense  with  a  pound  or  two  of  bacon 
per  week,  or  a  few  garments  annually.  Your  aim,  however, 
is  to  cheapen  labor  in  the  tropics.  The  idea  of  doing  this  by 
exporting  your  ';  bold  yeomanry"  is,  I  presume,  given  up. 
Cromwell  tried  it  when  he  sold  the  captured  followers  of 
Charles  into  West  Indian  Slavery,  where  they  speedily  found 
graves.  Nor  have  your  recent  experiments  on  British  and 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  143 

even  Dutch  constitutions  succeeded  better.  Have  you  still 
faith  in  carrying  thither  your  Coolies  from  Hindostan  ?  Doubt- 
less that  once  wild  robber  race,  whose  highest  eulogium  was 
that  they  did  not  murder  merely  for-  the  love  of  blood,  have 
been  tamed  down,  and  are  perhaps  "  keen  for  immigration," 
for  since  your  civilization  has  reached  it,  plunder  has  grown 
scarce  in  Guzerat.  But  what  is  the  result  of  the  experiment 
thus  far  ?  Have  the  Coolies,  ceasing  to  handle  arms,  learned 
to  handle  spades,  and  proved  hardy  and  profitable  laborers  ? 
On  the  contrary,  broken  in  spirit  and  stricken  with  disease  at 
home,  the  wretched  victims  whom  you  have  hitherto  kid- 
napped for  a  bounty,  confined  in  depots,  put  under  hatches 
and  carried  across  the  ocean — forced  into  "  voluntary  immi- 
gration," have  done  little  but  lie  down  and  die  on  the  pseudo 
soil  of  freedom.  At  the  end  of  five  years  two  thirds,  in  some 
colonies  a  larger  proportion,  are  no  more  !  Humane  and 
pious  contrivance  !  To  alleviate  the  fancied  sufferings  of  the 
accursed  posterity  of  Ham,  you  sacrifice  by  a  cruel  death 
two-thirds  of  the  children  of  the  blessed  Shem — and  demand 
the  applause-  of  Christians — the  blessing  of  heaven  !  If  this 
"  experiment"  is  to  go  on,  in  God's  name  try  your  hand  upon 
the  Thugs.  That  other  species  of  "  immigration"  to  which 
you  are  resorting  I  will  consider  presently. 

But  what  do  you  calculate  will  be  the  result  of  emancipa- 
tion, by  whatever  means  accomplished  ?  You  will  probably 
point  me,  by  way  of  answer,  to  the  West  Indies — doubtless 
to  Antigua,  the  great  boast  of  abolition.  Admitting  that  it 
has  succeeded  there — which  I  will  do  for  the  sake  of  the 
argument — do  you  know  the  reason  of  it  ?  The  true  and 
only  causes  of  whatever  success  has  attended  it  in  Antigua  are, 
that  the  population  was  before  crowded,  and  all  or  nearly  all 
the  arable  land  in  cultivation.  The  emancipated  negroes 


144  HAMMOXD'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

could  not,  many  of  them,  get  away  if  they  desired  ;  and  knew 
not  where  to  go,  in  case  they  did.  They  had,  practically,  no 
alternative  but  to  remain  on  the  spot ;  and  remaining,  they 
must  work  on  the  terms  of  the  proprietors,  or  perish — the 
strong  arm  of  the  mother  country  forbidding  all  hope  of  seiz- 
ing the  land  for  themselves.  The  proprietors,  well  knowing 
that  they  could  thus  command  labor  for  the  merest  necessi- 
ties of  life,  which  was  much  cheaper  than  maintaining  the 
non-effective  as  well  as  effective  slaves  in  a  style  which  decency 
and  interest,  if  not  humanit}7,  required,  willingly  accepted  half 
their  value,  and  at  once  realized  far  more  than  the  interest  on 
the  other  half  in  the  diminution  of  their  expenses,  and  the 
reduced  comforts  of  the  freemen.  One  of  your  most  illus- 
trious judges,  who  was  also  a  profound  and  philosophical  his- 
torian, has  said  "  that  villeinage  was  not  abolished,  but  went 
into  decay  in  England."  This  was  the  process.  This  has 
been  the  process  wherever  (the  name  of)  villeinage  or  slavery 
has  been  successfully  abandoned.  Slavery,  in  fact,  "  went 
into  decay"  in  Antigua.  I  have  admitted  that,  under  similar 
circumstances,  it  might  profitably  cease  here — that  is,  profita- 
bly to  the  individual  proprietors.  Give  me  half  the  value  of 
my  slaves,  and  compel  them  to  remain  and  labor  on  my 
plantation,  at  ten  to  eleven  cents  a  day,  as  they  do  in  An- 
tigua, supporting  themselves  and  families,  and  you  shall  have 
them  to-morrow,  and  if  you  like  dub  them  "  free."  Not  to 
stickle,  I  would  surrender  them  without  price.  No — I  recall 
my  words  :  My  humanity  revolts  at  the  idea.  I  am  attached 
to  my  slaves,  and  would  not  have  act  or  part  in  reducing 
them  to  such  a  condition.  I  deny,  however,  that  Antigua,  as 
a  community,  is,  or  ever  will  be,  as  prosperous  under  present 
circumstances,  as  she  was  before  abolition,  though  fully  ripe 
for  it.  The  fact  is  well  known.  The  reason  is  that  the  Afri- 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  145 

can,  if  not  a  distinct,  is  an  inferior  race,  and  never  will  effect, 
as  it  never  has  effected,  as  much  in  any  other  condition  as  in 
that  of  Slavery. 

I  know  of  no  slaveholder  who  has  visited  the  West  Indies 
since  Slavery  was  abolished,  and  published  his  views  of  it. 
All  our  facts  and  opinions  come  through  the  friends  of  the 
experiment,  or  at  least  those  not  opposed  to  it.  Taking  these, 
even  without  allowance,  to  be  true  as  stated,  I  do  not  see 
where  the  abolitionists  find  cause  for  exultation.  The  tables 
of  exports,  which  are  the  best  evidences  of  the  condition  of  a 
people,  exhibit  a  woful  falling  off- — excused,  it  is  true,  by  un- 
precedented droughts  and  hurricanes,  to  which  their  free  labor 
seems  unaccountably  more  subject  than  slave  labor  used  to  be. 
I  will  not  go  into  detail.  It  is  well  known  that  a  large  pro- 
portion of  British  legislation  and  expenditure,  and  that  pro- 
portion still  constantly  increasing,  is  most  anxiously  devoted 
to  repairing  the  monstrous  error  of  emancipation.  You  are 
actually  galvanizing  your  expiring  'colonies.  The  truth,  de- 
duced from  all  the  facts,  was  thus  pithily  stated  by  the  Lon- 
don Quarterly  Review,  as  long  ago  as  1840  :  "None  of  the 
benefits  anticipated  by  mistaken  good  intentions  have  been 
realized,  while  every  evil  wished  for  by  knaves  and  foreseen 
by  the  wise  has  been  painfully  verified.  The  wild  rashness  of 
fanaticism  has  made  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  Equiva- 
lent to  the  loss  of  one-half  of  the  West  Indies,  and  yet  put 
back  the  chance  of  negro  civilization."  (Art.  Ld.  Dudley's 
Letters.}  Such  are  the  real  fruits  of  your  never-to-be-too- 
much-glorified  abolition,  and  the  valuable  dividend  of  your 
twenty  millions  of  pounds  sterling  invested  therein. 

If  any  farther  proof  was  wanted  of  the  utter  and  well- 
known,  though  not  yet  openly  avowed,  failure  of  West  Indian 
emancipation,  it  would  be  furnished  by  the  startling  fact,  that 
THE,  AFRICAN  SLAVE  TRADE  HAS  BEEN  ACTUALLY  REVIVED 
13 


146  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  o$  SLAVERY. 

UNDER  THE  AUSPICES  AND    PROTECTION  OF  THE  BRITISH 

ERNMENT.  Under  the  specious  guise  of  "  immigration,"  they 
are  replenishing  those  Islands  with  slaves  from  the  coast  of 
Africa.  Your  colony  of  Sierra  Leone,  founded  on  that  coast 
to  prevent  the  slave  trade,  and  peopled,  by  the  bye,  in  the 
first  instance,  by  negroes  stolen  from  these  States  during  the 
Revolutionary  War,  is  the  depot  to  which  captives  taken  from 
slavers  by  your  armed  vessels  are  transported.  I  might  say 
return edt  since  nearly  half  the  Africans  carried  across  the 
Atlantic  are  understood  to  be  embarked  in  this  vicinity.  The 
wretched  survivors,  who  are  there  set  at  liberty,  are  imme- 
diately seduced  to  "  immigrate"  to  the  West  Indies.  The 
business  is  systematically  carried  on  by  black  "  delegates," 
sent  expressly  from  the  West  Indies,  where,  on  arrival,  the 
"immigrants"  are  sold  into  Slavery  for  twenty-one  years, 
under  conditions  ridiculously  trivial  and  wickedly  void,  since 
few  or  none  will  ever  be  able  to  derive  any  advantage  from 
them.  The  whole  prime  of  life  thus  passed  in  bondage,  it  is 
contemplated,  and  doubtless  it  will  be  carried  into  effect,  to 
turn  them  out  in  their  old  age  to  shift  for  themselves,  and  to 
supply  their  places  with  fresh  and  vigorous  "  immigrants." 
Was  ever  a  system  of  Slavery  so  barbarous  devised  before  ? 
Can  you  think  of  comparing  it  with  ours  ?  Even  your  own 
religious  missionaries  at  Sierra  Leone  denounce  it  "  as  worse 
than  the  slave  state  in  Africa."  And  your  black  delegates,  fear- 
ful of  the  influence  of  these  missionaries,  as  well  as  on  account 
of  the  inadequate  supply  of  captives,  are  now  preparing  to  pro- 
cure the  able-bodied  and  comparatively  industrious  Kroomen 
of  the  interior,  by  purchasing  from  their  head-men  the  privi- 
lege of  inveigling  them  to  the  West  India  market !  So  ends 
the  magnificent  farce — perhaps  I  should  say  tragedy,  of  West 
India  abolition  !  I  will  not  harrow  your  feelings  by  asking 
you  to  review  the  labors  of  your  life  and  tell  me  what  you 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  147 

and  your  brother  enthusiasts  have  accomplished  for  "  injured 
Africa,"  but  while  agreeing  with  Lord  Stowell,  that  "  villein- 
age decayed,"  and  admitting  that  Slavery  might  do  so  also,  I 
think  I  am  fully  justified  by  passed  and  passing  events  in 
saying,  as  Mr.  Grosvenor  said  of  the  slave  trade,  that  its 
abolition  is  "impossible." 

You  are  greatly  mistaken,  however,  if  you  think  that  the 
consequences  of  emancipation  here  would  be  similar  and  no 
more  injurious  than  those  which  followed  from  it  in  your  little 
sea-girt  West  India  Islands,  where  nearly  all  were  blacks. 
The  system  of  Slavery  is  not  in  "  decay"  with  us.  It  flour- 
ishes in  full  and  growing  vigor.  Our  country  is  boundless  in 
extent.  Dotted  here  and  there  with  villages  and  fields,  it  is, 
for  the  most  part,  covered  with  immense  forests  and  swamps 
of  almost  unknown  size.  In  such  a  country,  with  a  people  so 
restless  as  ours,  communicating  of  course  some  of  that  spirit 
to  their  domestics,  can  you  conceive  that  any  thing  short  of 
the  power  of  the  master  over  the  slave,  could  confine  the 
African  race,  notoriously  idle  and  improvident,  to  labor  on 
our  plantations  ?  Break  this  bond,  but  for  a  day,  and  these 
plantations  will  be  solitudes.  The  negro  loves^change,  novelty 
and  sensual  excitements  of  all  kinds,  when  awake.  "  Reason 
and  order,"  of  which  Mr.  Wilberforee  said  "  liberty  was  the 
child,"  do  not  characterize  him.  Released  from  his  present 
obligations,  his  first  impulse  would  be  to  go  somewhere.  And 
here  no  natural  boundaries  would  restrain  him.  At  first  they 
would  all  seek  the  towns,  and  rapidly  accumulate  in  squalid 
groups  upon  their  outskirts.  Driven  thence  by  the  "armed 
police,"  which  would  immediately  spring  into  existence,  they 
would  scatter  in  all  directions.  Some  bodies  of  them  might 
wander  towards  the  "  free"  States,  or  to  the  Western  wilder- 
ness, marking  their  tracks  by  their  depredations  and  their 
corpses.  Many  would  roam  wild  in  our  "  big  woods."  Many 


148  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

more  would  seek  the  recesses  of  our  swamps  for  secure  covert. 
Few,  very  few  of  them,  could  be  prevailed  on  to  do  a  stroke 
of  work,  none  to  labor  continuously,  while  a  head  of  cattle, 
sheep  or  swine  could  be  found  in  our  ranges,  or  an  ear  of  corn 
nodded  in  our  abandoned  fields.  These  exhausted,  our  folds 
and  poultry  yards,  barns  and  store- houses,  would  become  their 
prey.  Finally,  our  scattered  dwellings  would  be  plundered, 
perhaps  fired,  and  the  inmates  murdered.  How  long  do  you 
suppose  that  we  could  bear  these  things  ?  How  long  would 
it  be  before  we  should  sleep  with  rifles  at  our  bedsides,  and 
never  move  without  one  in  our  hands  ?  This  work  once 
begun,  let  the  story  of  our  British  ancestors  and  the  aborigines 
of  this  country  tell  the  sequel.  Far  more  rapid,  however, 
would  be  the  catastrophe.  "  Ere  many  moons  went  by,"  the 
African  race  would  be  exterminated,  or  reduced  again  to 
Slavery,  their  ranks  recruited,  after  your  example,  by  fresh 
"  emigrants"  from  their  fatherland. 

Is  timely  preparation  and  gradual  emancipation  suggested 
to  avert  these  horrible  consequences  ?  I  thought  your  expe- 
rience in  the  West  Indies  had,  at  lea&t,  done  so  much  as  to 
explode  that  idea.  If  it  failed  there,  much  more  would  it 
fail  here,  where  the  two  races,  approximating  to  equality  in 
numbers,  are  daily  and  hourly  in  the  closest  contact.  Give 
room  for  but  a  single  spark  of  real  jealousy  to  be  kindled 
between  them,  and  the  explosion  would  be  instantaneous  and 
universal.  It  is  the  most  fatal  of  all  fallacies,  to  suppose  that 
these  two.  races  can  exist  together,  after  any  length  of  time, 
or  any  process  of  preparation,  on  terms  at  all  approaching  to 
equality.  Of  this,  both  of  them  are  finally  and  fixedly  con-' 
vinced.  They  differ  essentially,  in  all  the  leading  traits  which 
characterize  the  varieties  of  the  human  species,  and  color 
draws  an  indelible  and  insuperable  line  of  separation  between 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  149 

them.  Every  scheme  founded  upon  the  idea  that  they  can 
remain  together  on  the  same  soil,  beyond  the  briefest  period, 
in  any  other  relation  than  precisely  that  which  now  subsists 
between  them,  is  not  only  preposterous,  but  fraught  with 
deepest  danger.  If  there  was  no  alternative  but  to  try  the 
"  experiment "  here,  reason  and  humanity  dictate  that  the 
sufferings  of  "  gradualism  "  should  be  saved,  and  the  catastro- 
phe of  "  immediate  abolition"  enacted  as  rapidly  as  possible. 
Are- you  impatient  for  the  performance  to  commence?  Do 
you  long  to  gloat  over  the  scenes  I  have  suggested,  but  could 
not  hold  the  pen  to  portray  ?  In  your  long  life  many  such 
have  passed  under  your  review.  You  know  that  they  are  not 
"  impossible"  Can  they  be  to  your  taste ?  Do  you  believe 
that  in  laboring  to  bring  them  about,  the  abolitionists  are  do- 
ing the  will  of  God  ?  No  !  God  is  not  there.  It  is  the  work 
of  Satan.  The  arch-fiend,  under  specious  guises,  has  found 
his  way  into  their  souls,  and  with  false  appeals  to  philanthro- 
py, and  foul  insinuations  to  ambition,  instigates  them  to  rush 
headlong  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  diabolical  designs. 

We  live  in  a  wonderful  age.  The  events  of  the  last  three 
quarters  of  a  century  appear  to  have  revolutionized  the  human 
mind.  Enterprise  and  ambition  are  only  limited  in  their  pur- 
poses by  the  horizon  of  the  imagination.  It  is  the  transcen- 
dental era.  In  philosophy,  religion,  government,  science,  arts, 
commerce,  nothing  that  has  been  is  to  be  allowed  to  be. 
Conservatism,  in  any  form,  is  scoffed  at.  The  slightest  taint 
of  it  is  fatal.  Where  will  all  this  end  ?  If  you  can  tolerate 
one  ancient  maxim,  let  it  be  that  the  best  criterion  of  the  fu- 
ture is  the  past.  That,  if  anything,  will  give  a  clue.  And, 
looking  back  only  through  your  time,  what  was  the  earliest 
feat  of  this  same  transcendentalism  ?  The  rays  of  the  new 
moral  Drummond  Light  were  first  concentrated  to  a  focus  at 
13* 


150  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ox  SLAVERY. 

Paris,  to  illuminate  the  universe.  In  a  twinkling  it  consumed 
the  political,  religious  and  social  systems  of  France.  It  could 
not  be  extinguished  there  until  literally  drowned  in  blood. 
And  then,  from  its  ashes  arose  that  supernatural  man,  who, 
for  twenty  years,  kept  affrighted  Europe  in  convulsions.  Since 
that  time,  its  scattered  beams,  refracted  by  broader  surfaces, 
have,  nevertheless,  continued  to  scathe  wherever  they  have 
fallen.  "What  political  structure,  what  religious  creed,  but  has 
felt  the  galvanic  shock,  and  even  now  trembles,  to  its  founda- 
tions ?  Mankind,  still  horror-stricken  by  the  catastrophe  of 
France^  have  shrunk  from  rash  experiments  upon  social  sys- 
tems. But  they  have  been  practising  in  the  East,  around  the 
Mediterranean,  and  through  the  West  India  Islands.  And 
growing  con6dent,  a  portion  of  them  seem  desperately  bent 
on  kindling  the  all-devouring  flame  in  the  bosom  of  our  land. 
Let  it  once  again  blaze  up  to  heaven,  and  another  cycle  of 
blood  and  devastation  will  dawn  upon  the  world.  For  our 
own  sake,  and  for  the  sak«  of  those  infatuated  men  who  are 
madly  driving  on  the  conflagration ;  for  the  sake  of  human 
nature,  we  are  called  on  to  strain  every  nerve  to  arrest  it. 
And  be  assured  our  efforts  •will  be  bounded  only  with  our 
being.  Nor  do  I  doubt  that  five  millions  of  people,  brave, 
intelligent,  united,  and  prepared  to  hazard  every  thing,  will, 
in  such  a  cause,  with  the  blessing  of  God,  sustain  themselves. 
At  all  events,  come  what  may,  it  is  ours  to  meet  it. 

We  are  well  aware  of  the  light  estimation  in  which  the 
abolitionists,  and  those  who  are  taught  by  them,  profess  to 
hold  us.  We  have  seen  the  attempt  of  a  portion  of  the  Free 
Church  of  Scotland  to  reject  our  alms,  on  the  ground  that 
we  are  "slave-drivers,"  after  sending  missionaries  to  solicit 
them.  And  we  have  seen  Mr.  O'Connell,  the  "irresponsible 
master"  of  millions  of  ragged  serfs,  from  whom,  poverty 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  151 

stricken  as  they  are,  he  contrives  to  wring  a  splendid  privy 
purse,  throw  back  with  contumely,  the  "tribute"  of  his  own 
countrymen  from  this  land  of  "  miscreants."  These  people 
may  exhaust  their  slang,  and  make  black -guards  of  themselves, 
but  they  cannot  defile  us.  And  as  for  the  suggestion  to  ex- 
clude slaveholders  from  your  London  clubs,  we  scout  it. 
Many  of  us,  indeed,  do  go  to  London,  and  we  have  seen  your 
breed  of  gawky  lords,  both  there  and  here,  but  it  never  en- 
tered into  our  conceptions  to  look  on  them  as  better  than  our- 
selves. The  American  slaveholders,  collectively  or  individual- 
ly, ask  no  favors  of  any  man  or  race  who  tread  the  earth.  In 
none  of  the  attributes  of  men,  mental  or  physical,  do  they 
acknowledge  or  fear  superiority  elsewhere.  They  stand  in.the 
broadest  light  of  the  knowledge,  civilization  and  improvement 
of  the  age,  as  much  favored  of  heaven  as  any  of  the  sons  of 
Adam.  Exacting  nothing  undue,  they  yield  nothing  but  jus- 
tice and  courtesy,  even  to  royal  blood.  They  cannot  be  flat- 
tered, duped,  nor  bullied  out  of  their  rights  or  their  propriety. 
They  smile  with  contempt  at  scurrility  and  vaporing  beyond 
the  seas,  and  they  turn  their  backs  upon  it  where  it  is  "  irre- 
sponsible ;"  but  insolence  that  ventures  to  look  them  in  the 
face,  will  never  fail  to  be  chastised. 

I  think  I  may  trust  you  will  not  regard  this  letter  as  intru- 
sive. I  should  never  have  entertained  an  idea  of  writing  it, 
had  you  not  opened  the  correspondence.  If  you  think  any- 
thing in  it  harsh,  review  your  own — which  I  regret  that  I  lost 
soon  after  it  was  received — and  you  will  probably  find  that 
you  have  taken  your  revenge  before  hand.  If  you  have  not, 
transfer  an  equitable  share  of  what  you  deem  severe,  to  the 
account  of  the  abolitionists  at  large.  They  have  accumulated 
against  the  slaveholders  a  balance  of  invective,  which,  with  all 
our  efforts,  we  shall  not  be  able  to  liquidate  much  short  of  the 
era  in  which  your  national  debt  will  be  paid.  At  all  events, 


I 

152  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

I  have  no  desire  to  offend  yon  personally,  and,  with  the  best 
wishes  for  your  continued  health,  I  have  the  honor  to  be, 
Your  obedient  servant, 

J.  H.  HAMMOND. 
THOS.  CLARKSON,  Esq. 


SILVER  BLUFF,  S.  0.,  March  24,  1845. 

SIR — In  my  letter  to  you  of  the  28th  January — which  I 
.trust  you  have  received  ere  this — I  mentioned  that  I  had  lost 
your  circular  letter  soon  after  it  had  come  to  hand.  It  was, 
I  am  glad  to  say,  only  mislaid,  and  has  within  a  few  days 
been  recovered.  A  second  perusal  of  it  induces  me  to  resume 
my  pen.  Unwilling  to  trust  my  recollections  from  a  single 
reading,  I  did  not,  in  my  last  communication,  attempt  to  fol- 
low the  course  of  your  argument,  and  meet  directly  the  points 
made  and  the  terms  used.  I  thought  it  better  to  take  a  gen- 
eral view  of  the  subject,  which  could  not  fail  to  traverse  your 
most  material  charges.  I  am  well  aware,  however,  that  for 
fear  of  being  tedious,  I  omitted  many  interesting  topics  alto- 
gether, and  abstained  from  a  complete  discussion  of  some  of 
those  introduced.  I  do  not  propose  now  to  exhaust  the  sub- 
ject ;  which  it  would  require  volumes  to  do  ;  but  without 
waiting  to  learn — which  I  may  never  do — your  opinion  of 
what  I  have  already  said,  I  sit  down  to  supply  some  of  the 
deficiencies  of  my  letter  of  January,  and,  with  your  circular 
before  me,  to  reply  to  such  parts  of  it  as  have  not  been  fully 
answered. 

It  is,  I  perceive,  addressed,  among  others,  to  "  such  as  have 
never  visited  the  Southern  States"  of  this  confederacy,  and 


% 

HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ox  SLAVERY.  153 

professes  to  enlighten  their  ignorance  of  the  actual  "  condition 
of'  the  poor  slave  in  their  own  country."  I  cannot  help  think- 
ing you  would  have  displayed  prudence  in  confining  the  cir- 
culation of  your  letter  altogether  to  such  persons.  You  might 
then  have  indulged  with  impunity  in  giving,  as  you  have 
done,  a  picture  of  Slavery,  drawn  from  your  own  excited 
imagination,  or  from  those  impure  fountains,  the  Martineaus, 
Marryatts,  Trollopes  and  Dickenses,  who  have  profited  by 
catering,  at  our  expense,  to  the  jealous  sensibilities  and  de- 
bauched tastes  of  your  countrymen.  Admitting  that  you  are 
familiar  with  the  history  of  Slavery,  and  the  past  discussions 
of  it,  as  I  did,  I  now  think  rather  broadly,  in  my  former  let- 
ter, what  can  you  know  of  the  true  condition  of  the  "  poor 
slave  "  here  ?  I  am  not  aware  that  you  have  ever  visited  this 
country,  or  even  the  West  Indies.  Can  you  suppose,  that  be- 
cause you  have  devoted  your  life  to  the  investigation  of  the 
subject — commencing  it  under  the  influence  of  an  enthusiasm, 
so  melancholy  at  first,  and  so  volcanic  afterwards,  as  to  be 
nothing  short  of  hallucination — pursuing  it  as  men  of  one  idea 
do  everything,  with  the  single  purpose  of  establishing  your 
own  view  of  it — gathering  your  information  from  discharged 
seamen,  disappointed  speculators,  factious  politiSfcms,  visionary 
reformers  and  scurrilous  tourists — opening  your  ears  to  every 
species  of  complaint,  exaggeration  and  falsehood,  that  inter- 
ested ingenuity  could  invent,  and  never  for  a  moment  ques- 
tioning the  truth  of  anything  that  could  make  for  your  cause — 
can  you  suppose  that  all  this  has  qualified  you,  living  the 
while  in  England,  to  form  or  approximate  towards  the  forma- 
tion of  a  correct  opinion  of  the  condition  of  slaves  among  us  ? 
I  know  the  power  of  self-delusion.  I  have  not  the  least  doubt, 
that  you  think  yourself  the  very  best  informed  man  alive  on 
this  subject,  and  that  many  think  so  likewise.  So  far  as  facts 
go,  even  after  deducting  from  your  list  a  great  deal  that  is  not 


. 

'* 

dfl 

154  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

fact,  I  will  not  deny  that,  probably,  your  collection  is  the  most 
extensive  in  existence.  But  as  to  the  truth  in  regard  to 
Slavery,  there  is  not  an  adult  in  this  region  but  knows  more 
of  it  than  you  do.  Truth  and  fact  are,  you  are  aware,  by  no 
means  synonymous  terms.  Ninety-nine  facts  may  constitute 
a  falsehood:  the  hundredth,  added  or  alone,  gives  the  truth. 
With  all  your  knowledge  of  facts,  I  undertake  to  say  that 
you  are  entirely  and  grossly  ignorant  of  the  real  condition  of 
our  slaves.  And  from  all  that  I  can  see.  you  are  equally  ig- 
norant of  the  essential  principles  of  human  association, revealed 
in  history,  both  sacred  and  profane,  on  which  Slavery  rests, 
and  which  will  perpetuate  it  forever  in  some  form  or  other. 
However  you  may  declaim  against  it;  however  powerfully 
you  may  array  atrocious  incidents;  whatever  appeals  you  may 
make  to  the  heated  imaginations  and  tender  sensibilities  of 
mankind,  believe  me,  your  total  blindness  to  the  whole  truth, 
which  alone  constitutes  the  truth,  incapacitates  you  from  ever 
making  an  impression  on  the  sober  reason  and  sound  com- 
mon sense  of  the  world.  You  may  seduce  thousands — you 
can  convince  no  one.  Whenever  and  wherever  you  or  the 
advocates  of  your  cause  can  arouse  the  passions  of  the  weak- 
minded  and  the  ignorant,  and  bringing  to  bear  with  them  the 
interests  of  the  vicious  and  unprincipled,  overwhelm  common, 
sense  and  reason — as  God  sometimes  permits  to  be  done— you 
may  triumph.  Such  a  triumph  we  have  witnessed  in  Great 
Britain.  But  I  trust  it  is  far  distant  here  ;  nor  can  it,  from  its 
nature,  be  extensive  or  enduring.  Other  classes  of  reformers, 
animated  by  the  same  spirit  as  the  abolitionists,  attack  the 
institution  of  marriage,  and  even  the  established  relations  of 
parent  and  child.  And  they  collect  instances  of  barbarous 
cruelty  and  shocking  degradation,  which  rival,  if  they  do  not 
throw  into  the  shade,  your  Slavery  statistics.  But  the  rights 
of  marriage  and  parental  authority  rests  upon  truths  as  ob- 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  155 

vious  as  they  are  unchangeable — coming  home  to  every  hu- 
man being, — self-impressed  forever  on  the  individual  mind, 
and  cannot  be  shaken  until  the  whole  man  is  corrupted,  nor  sub- 
verted until  civilized  society  becomes  a  putrid  mass.  Domestic 
Slavery  is  not  so  universally  understood,  nor  can  it  make  such 
a  direct  appeal  to  individuals  or  society  beyond  its  pale. 
Here,  prejudice  and  passion  have  room  to  sport  at  the  expense 
of  others.  They  may  be  excited  and  urged  to  dangerous  ac- 
tion, remote  from  the  victims  they  mark  out.  They  may,  as 
they  have  done,  effect  great  mischief,  but  they  cannot  be  made 
to  maintain,  in  the  long  run,  dominion  over  reason  and 
common  sense,  nor  ultimately  put  down  what  God  has  or- 
dained. 

You  deny,  however,  that  Slavery  is  sanctioned  by  God,  and 
your  chief  argument  is,  that  when  he  gave  to  Adam  dominion 
over  the  fruits  of  the  earth  and  the  animal  creation,  he  stopped 
there.  "  He  never  gave  him  any  further  right  over  his  fellow- 
inen.''  You  restrict  the  descendants  of  Adam  to  a  very  short 
list  of  rights  and  powers,  duties  and  responsibilities,  if  you 
limit  them  solely  to  those  conferred  and  enjoined  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis.  It  is  very  obvious  that  in  this  narrative 
of  the  Creation,  Moses  did  not  have  it  in  view  to  record  any 
part  of  the  law  intended  for  the  government  of  man  in  his 
social  or  political  state.  Eve  was  not  yet  created ;  the  expul- 
sion had  not  yet  taken  place  ;  Cain  was  unborn  ;  and  no  allu- 
sion whatever  is  made  to  the  manifold  decrees  of  God  to 
which  these  events  gave  rise.  The  only  serious  answer  this 
argument  deserves,  is  to  say,  what  is  so  manifestly  true,  that 
God's  not  expressly  giving  to  Adam  "  any  right  over  his  fel- 
low-men "  by  no  means  excluded  him  from  conferring  that 
right  on  his  descendants  ;  which  he  in  fact  did.  We  know 
that  Abraham,  the  chosen  one  of  God,  exercised  it  and  held 
property  in  his  fellow-man,  even  anterior  to  the  period  when 


156  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

property  in  land  was  acknowledged.  We  might  infer  that 
God  had  authorized  it.  But  we  are  not  reduced  to  inference 
or  conjecture.  At  the  hazard  of  fatiguing  you  by  repetition, 
I  will  again  refer  you  to  the  ordinances  of  the  Scriptures.  In- 
numerable instances  might  be  quoted  .where  God  has  given 
and  commanded  men  to  assume  dominion  over  their  fellow- 
men.  But  one  will  suffice.  In  the  twenty  fifth  chapter  of 
Leviticus,  you  will  find  domestic  Slavery — precisely  such  as 
is  maintained  at  this  day  in  these  States — ordained  and  estab- 
lished by  God,  in  language  which  I  defy  you  to  pervert  so 
as  to  leave  a  doubt  on  any  honest  mind  that  this  institution 
was  founded  by  him,  and  decreed  to  be  perpetual.  I  quote 
the  words : 

Leviticus  xxv.  44-46  :  "  Both  thy  bondmen  and  thy  bond- 
maids which  thou  shalt  have,  shall  be  of  the  heathen  [Afri- 
cans] that  are  round  about  you  :  of  them  ye  shall  buy  bond- 
men and  bondmaids. 

"  Moreover,  of  the  children  of  the  strangers  that  do  sojourn 
among  you,  of  them  shall  ye  buy,  and  of  their  families  that 
are  with  you  which  they  begat  in  your  land  [descendants  of 
Africans  ?]  and  they  shall  be  your  possession. 

"And  ye  shall  take  them  as  an  inheritance  for  your  chil- 
dren after  you,  to  inherit  them  for  a  possession.  THEY  SHALL 

BE  YOUR  BONDMEN  FOREVER." 

What  human  legislature  could  make  a  decree  more  full 
and  explicit  than  this  ?  What  court  of  law  or  chancery  could 
defeat  a  title  to  a  slave  couched  in  terms  so  clear  and  com- 
plete as  these  ?  And  this  is  the  law  of  God,  whom  you  pre- 
tend to  worship,  while  you  denounce  and  traduce  us  for  re- 
specting it. 

It  seems  scarcely  credible,  but  the  fact  is  so,  that  you  deny 
this  law  so  plainly  written,  and  in  the  face  of  it  have  the 
hardihood  to  declare  that  "  though  Slavery  is  not  specifically, 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  o>'  SLAVERY.  157 

yet  it  is  virtually,  forbidden  in  the  Scriptures,  because  all  the 
crimes  which  necessarily  arise  out  of  Slavery,  and  which  can 
arise  from  no  other  source,  are  reprobated  there  and  threat- 
ened with  divine  vengeance."  Such  an  unworthy  subterfuge 
is  scarcely  entitled  to  consideration.  But  its  gross  absurdity 
may  be  exposed  in  few  words.  I  do  not  know  what  crimes 
3Tou  particularly  allude  to  as  arising  from  Slavery.  But  you 
will  perhaps  admit — not  because  they  are  denounced  in  the 
decalogue,  which  the  abolitionists  respect  only  so  far  as  they 
choose,  but  because  it  is  the  immediate  interest  of  most  men 
to  admit — that  disobedience  to  parents,  adultery,  and  steal- 
ing, are  crimes.  Yet  these  crimes  "necessarily  arise  from" 
the  relations  of  parent  and  child,  marriage,  and  the  possession 
of  private  property ;  at  least  they  "  can  arise  from  no  other 
sources."  Then,  according  to  your  argument,  it  is  "  virtually 
forbidden  "  to  marry,  to  beget  children,  and  to  hold  private 
property  !  Nay,  it  is  forbidden  to  live,  since  murder  can  only 
be  perpetrated  on  living  subjects.  You  add  that  "  in  the  same 
way  the  gladiatorial  shows  of  old,  and  other  barbarous  cus- 
toms, were  not  specifically  forbidden  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  yet  Christianity  was  the  sole  means  of  their  suppression." 
This  is  very  true.  But  these  shows  and  barbarous  customs 
thus  suppressed  were  not  -authorized  by  God.  They  were  not 
ordained  and  commanded  by  God  for  the  benefit  of  his  chosen 
people  and  mankind,  as  the  purchase  and  holding  of  bond- 
men and  bondmaids  were.  Had  they  been  they  would  never 
have  been  "  suppressed  by  Christianity  "  any  more  than  Sla- 
very can  be  by  your  party.  Although  Christ  came  "  not  to 
destroy  but  fulfil  the  law,"  he  nevertheless  did  formally  abro- 
gate some  of  the  ordinances  promulgated  by  Moses,  and  all 
such  as  were  at  war  with  his  mission  of  "  peace  and  good  will 
on  earth."  He  "  specifically  "  annuls,  for  instance,  one  "  bar- 
barous custom  "  sanctioned  by  those  ordinances,  where  he 
14 


158  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ox  SLAVERY. 

says,  "ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  an  eye  for  an 
eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  ;  but  I  say  unto  you  that  ye  resist 
not  evil,  but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee  en  the  right  eheekr 
turn  to  him  the  other  also."  Now,  in  the  time  of  Christ,  it 
was  usual  for  masters  to  put  their  slaves  to  death  on  the 
slightest  provocation.  They  even  killed  and  cut  them  up  to 
feed  their  fishes.  He  was  undoubtedly  aware  of  these  things, 
as  well  as  of  the  law  and  commandment  I  have  quoted.  He 
could  only  have  been  restrained  from  denouncing  them,  as  he 
did  the  "  lex  talionis"  because  he  knew  that  in  despite  of 
these  barbarities  the  institution  of  Slavery  was  at  the  bottom 
a  sound  and  wholesome,  as  well  as  lawful  one.  Certain  it  isr 
that  in  his  wisdom  and  purity  he  did  not  see  proper  to  inter- 
fere with  it.  In  your  wisdom,  however,  you  make  the  sacri- 
legious attempt  to  overthrow  it. 

You  quote  the  denunciation  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  say 
that  "  the  chief  reason  given  by  the  prophet  Joel  for  their  de- 
struction, was,  that  they  were  notorious  beyond  all  others  for 
carrying  on  the  slave  trade."  I  am  afraid  you  think  we  have 
no  Bibles  in  the  Slave  States,  or  that  we  are  unable  to 
read  them.  I  cannot  otherwise  account  for  your  making  this 
reference,  unless  indeed  your  own  reading  is  confined  to  an 
expurgated  edition,  prepared  for  the  use  of  abolitionists,  in 
which  everything  relating  to  Slavery  that  militates  against 
their  view  of  it  is  left  out.  The  prophet  Joel  denounces  the 
Tyrians  and  Sidonians,  because  "  the  children  also  of  Judah 
and  the  children  of  Jerusalem  have  ye  sold  unto  the  Grecians." 
And  what  is  the  divine  vengeance  for  this  "  notorious  slave 
trading  ?"  Hear  it.  "And  I  will  sell 'your  sons  and  daugh- 
ters into  the  hands  of  the  children  of  Judah,  and  they  shall 
sell  them  to  the  Sabeans,  to  a  people  far  off;  for  the  Lord 
hath  spoken  it."  Do  you  call  this  a  condemnation  of  slave 
trading  ?  The  prophet  makes  God  himself  a  participator  in 

.,7         * 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  159 

the  crime,  if  that  be  one.  "  The  Lord  hath  spoken  it,"  he 
says,  that  the  Tynans  and  Sidouians  shall  be  sold  into  slavery 
to  strangers.  Their  real  offence  was,  in  enslaving  the  chosen 
people  ;  and  their  sentence  was  a  repetition  of  the  old  com- 
mand, to  makes  slaves  of  the  heathen  round  about. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  your  scriptural  argument,  because  you 
profess  to  believe  the  Bible  ;  because  a  large  proportion  of  the 
abolitionists  profess  to  do  the  same,  and  to  act  under  its  sanc- 
tion ;  because  your  circular  is  addressed  in  part  to  "professing 
Christians  ;"  and  because  it  is  from  that  class  mainly  that  you 
expect  to  seduce  converts  to  your  anti-christian,  I  may  say, 
infidel  doctrines.  It  would  be  wholly  unnecessary  to  answer 
you,  to  any  one  who  reads  the  Scriptures  for  himself,  and  con- 
strues them  according  to  any  other  formula  than  that  which 
the  abolitionists  are  wickedly  endeavoring  to  impose  upon  the 
world.  The  scriptural  sanction  of  Slavery  is  in  fact  so  palpa- 
ble, and  so  strong,  that  both  wings  of  your  party  are  begin- 
ning to  acknowledge  it.  The  more  sensible  and  moderate 
admit,  as  the  organ  of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  the  Xortli 
British  Review,  has  lately  done,  that  they  "  are  precluded  by 
the  statements  and  conduct  of  the  Apostles  from  regarding 
mere  slaveholdiny  as  essentially  sinful"  while  the  desperate 
and  reckless,  who  are  bent  on  keeping  up  the  agitation  at 
every  hazard,  declare,  as  has  been  done  in  the  Anti-Slavery 
Record,  "If  our  inquiry  turns  out  in  favor  of  Slavery,  JT  is 
THE  BIBLE  THAT  MUST  FALL,  AND  NOT  THE  RIGHTS  OF  HUMAN 
NATURE."  You  cannot,  I  am  satisfied,  much  longer  maintain. 
before  the  world  the  Christian  platform  from  which,  to  wage 
war  upon  our  institutions.  Driven  from  it,  you  must  aban- 
don the  contest,  or,  repudiating  REVELATION,  rush  into  the 
horrors  of  NATURAL  RELIGION. 

You  next  complain  that  our  slaves  are  kept  in  bondage  by 
the  "  law  of  force."  In  what  country  or  condition  of  mankind 


160  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

do  you  see  human  affairs  regulated  merely  by  the  law  of 
love  ?  Unless  I  am  greatly  mistaken,  you  will,  if  you  look 
over  the  world,  find  nearly  all  certain  and  permanent  rights, 
civil,  social,  and  I  may  even  add  religious,  resting  on  and  ulti- 
mately secured  by  the  "  law  of  force."  The  power  of  majori- 
ties— of  aristocracies — of  kings — nay  of  priests,  for  the  most 
part,  and  of  property,  resolves  itself  at  last  into  "  force,"  and 
could  not  otherwise  be  long  maintained.  Thus,  in  every  turn 
of  your  argument  against  our  system  of  Slavery,  you  advance, 
whether  conscious  of  it  or  not,  radical  and  revolutionary  doc- 
trines calculated  to  change  the  whole  face  of  the  world,  to 
overthrow  all  government,  disorganize  society,  and  reduce 
man  to  a  state  of  nature — red  with  blood,  and  shrouded  once 
more  in  barbaric  ignorance.  But  you  greatly  err,  if  you  sup- 
pose, because  we  rely  on  force  in  the  last  resort  to  maintain 
our  supremacy  over  our  slaves,  that  ours  is  a  stern  and  un- 
feeling domination,  at  all  to  be  compared  in  hard-hearted 
severity  to  that  exercised,  not  over  the  mere  laborer  only,  but 
by  the  higher  over  each  lower  order,  wherever  the  British 
sway  is  acknowledged.  You  say,  that  if  those  you  address 
were  "to  spend  one  day  in  the  South,  they  would  return 
home  with  impressions  against  Slavery  never  to  be  erased." 
But  the  fact  is  universally  the  reverse.  I  have  known  nume- 
rous instances,  and  I  never  knew  a  single  one,  where  there 
•was  no  other  cause  of  offence,  and  no  object  to  promote  by 
falsehood,  that  individuals  from  the  non-slaveholding  States 
did  not,  after  residing  among  us  long  enough  to  understand 
the  subject,  "  return  home  "  to  defend  our  Slavery.  It  is  matter 
of  regret  that  you  have  never  tried  the  experiment  yourself. 
I  do  not  doubt  you  would  have  been  converted,  for  I  give  you 
credit  for  an  honest  though  perverted  mind.  You  would 
have  seen  how  weak  and  futile  is  all  abstract  reasoning  about 
this  matter,  and  that,  as  a  building  may  not  be  less  elegant 


HAMMOXD'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  161 

in  its  proportions,  or  tasteful  in  its  ornaments,  or  virtuous  in 
its  uses,  for  being  based  upon  granite,  so  a  system  of  human 
government,  though  founded  on  force,  may  deyelope  and  cul- 
tivate the  tenderest  and  purest  sentiments  of  the  human 
heart.  And  our  patriarchal  scheme  of  domestic  servitude  is 
indeed  well  calculated  to  awaken  the  higher  and  finer  feelings 
of  our  nature.  It  is  not  wanting  in  its  enthusiasm  and  its 
poetry.  The  relations,  of  the  most  beloved  and  honored  chief, 
and  the  most  faithful  and  admiring  subjects,  which,  from  the 
time  of  Homer,  have  been  the  theme  of  song,  are  frigid  and 
unfelt  compared  with  those  existing  between  the  master  and 
his  slaves — who  served  his  father,  and  rocked  his  cradle,  or 
have  been  born  in  his  household,  and  look  forward  to  serve 
his  children— who  have  been  through  life  the  props  of  his 
fortune,  and  the  objects  of  his  care — who"  have  partaken  of 
his  griefs,  and  looked  to  him  for  comfort  in  their  own — whoso 
sickness  he  has  so  frequently  watched  over  and  relieved — 
whose  holidays  he  has  so  often  made  joyous  by  his  bounties 
and  his  presence  ;  for  whose  welfare,  when  absent,  his  anxious 
solicitude  never  ceases,  and  whose  hearty  and  affectionate 
greetings  never  fail  to  welcome  him  home.  In  this  cold,  cal- 
culating, ambitious  world  of  ours,  there  are  few  ties  more 
heartfelt,  or  of  more  benignant  influence,  than  those  which 
mutually  bind  the  master  and  the  slave,  under  our  ancient 
system,  handed  down  from  the  father  of  Israel.  The  unholy 
purpose  of  the  abolitionists,  is  to  destroy  by  defiling  it ;  to 
infuse  into  it  the  gall  and  bitterness  which  rankle  in  their  own. 
envenomed  bosoms ;  to  poison  the  minds  of  the  master  and 
the  servant;  turn  love  to  hatred,  array  "force"  against  force, 
and  hurl  all 

"  With  hideous  ruin  and  combustion,  down 

To  bottomless  perdition." 

You  think  it  a  great  "  crime  "  that  we  do  not  pav  our  slaves 

u- 


162  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

"  wages,"  and  on  this  account  pronounce  us  "  robbers."  In 
my  former  letter,  I  showed  that  the  labor  of  our  slaves  •was 
not  without  great  cost  to  us,  and  that  in  fact  they  themselves 
receive  more  in  return  for  it  than  your  hirelings  do  for  theirs. 
For  what  purpose  do  men  labor,  but  to  support  themselves 
and  their  families  in  what  comfort  they  are  able  ?  The  efforts 
of  mere  physical  labor  seldom  suffice  to  provide  more  than  a 
livelihood.  And  it  is  a  well  known  and  shocking  fact,  that 
while  few  operatives  in  Great  Britain  succeed  in  securing  a 
comfortable  living,  the  greater  part  drag  out  a  miserable  ex- 
istence, and  sink  at  last  under  absolute  want.  Of  what  avail 
is  it  that  you  go  through  the  form  of  paying  them  a  pittance 
of  what  you  call  "  wages,""  when  you  do  not,  in  return  for 
their  services,  allow  them  what  alone  they  ask — and  have  a 
just  right  to  demand— enough  to  feed,  clothe  and  lodge  them, 
in  health  and  sickness,  with  reasonable  comfort.  Though  we 
do  not  give  "  wages  "  in  money,  we  do  this  for  our  slaves,  and 
they  are  therefore  better  rewarded  than  yours.  It  is  the  pre- 
vailing vice  and  error  of  the  age,  and  one  from  which  the 
abolitionists,  with  all  their  saintly  pretensions,  are  far  from 
being  free, 'to  bring  everything  to  the  standard  of  money. 
You  make  gold  and  silver  the  great  test  of  happiness.  The 
American  slave  must  be  wretched  indeed,  because  he  is  not 
compensated  for  his  services  in  cash.  It  is  altogether  praise- 
worthy to  pay  the  laborer  a  shilling  a  day,  and  let  him  starve 
on  it.  To  supply  all  his  wants  abundantly,  and  at  all  times, 
yet  withhold  from  him  money,  is  among  "  the  most  reprobated 
crimes."  The  fact  cannot  be  denied,  that  the  mere  laborer  is 
now,  and  always  has  been,  everywhere  that  barbarism  has 
ceased,  enslaved.  Among  the  innovations  of  modern  times, 
following  "  the  decay  of  villeinage,"  has  been  the  creation  of 
a  new  system  of  Slavery.  The  primitive  and  patriarchal, 
which  may  also  be  called  the  sacred  and  natural  system,  in 


..* 

HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  163 

which  the  laborer  is  tinder  the  personal  control  of  a  fellow- 
being  endowed  with  the  sentiments  and  sympathies  of  hu- 
manity, exists  among  us.  It  has  been  almost  every  where  else 
superseded  by  the  modern  artificial  money  fyower  system,  in 
which  man — his  thews  and  sinews,  his  hopes  and  affections,  his 
very  being,  are  alb  subjected  to  the  dominion  of  capital — a 
monster  without  a  heart — cold,  stern,  arithmetical — sticking 
to  the  bond — taking  ever  "  the  pound  of  flesh-," — working  up 
human  life  with  engines,  and  retailing  it  out  by  weight -and 
measure.  His  name  of  old  was  "  Mammon,  the  least  erected 
spirit  that  fell  from  heaven."  And  it  is  to  extend  his  empire 
that  you  and 'your  deluded  coadjutors  dedicate  your  lives. 
You  are  stirring  up  mankind  to  overthrow  our  heaven-ordain- 
ed system  of  servitude,  surrounded  by  innumerable  checks, 
designed  and  planted  deep  in  the  human  heart  by  God  and 
nature,  to  substitute  the  absolute  rule  'of  this  "  spirit  repro- 
bate," whose  proper  place  was  hell. 

You  charge  us  with  looking  on  our  slaves  "  as  chattels  or 
brutes,"  and  enter  into  a  somewhat  elaborate  argument  to 
prove  that  they  have  "  human  forms,"  "  talk,"  and  even 
"  think."  Now  the  fact  is,  that  however  you  may  indulge  in 
this  strain  for  effect,  it  is  the  abolitionists,  and  not  the  slave- 
holders, who,  practically,  and  in  the  most  important  point  of 
view,  regard  our  slaves  as  "  chattels  or  brutes."  In  your  cal- 
culations of  the  consequences  of  emancipation,  you  pass  over 
entirely  those  which  must  prove  most  serious,  and  which  arise 
from  the  fact  of  their  being  persons.  You  appear  to  think 
that  we  might  abstain  from  the  use  of  them  as  readily  as  if 
they:were  machines  to  be  laid  aside,  or  cattle  that  might  be 
turned  out  to  find  pasturage  for  themselves.  I  have  hereto- 
fore glanced  at  some  of  the  results  that  would  follow  from 
breaking  the  bonds  of  so  many  human  beings,  now  peacefully 
and  happily  linked  into  our  social  system.  The  tragic  hor- 


. 

164  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  our  SLAVERY. 

rors,  the  decay  and  ruin  that  would  for*  years,  perhaps  for 
ages,  brood  over  our  land,  if  it  could  be  accomplished,  I  will 
not  attempt  to  portray.  But  do  you  fancy  the  blight  would, 
in  such  an  event,  come  to  us  alone  ?  The  diminution  of  the 
sugar  crop  of  the  West  Indies  affected  Great  Britain  only,  and 
there  chiefly  the  poor.  It  was  a  matter  of  no  moment  to 
capital,  that  labor  should  have  one  comfort  less.  Yet  it  has 
forced  a  reduction  of  the  British  duty  on  sugar.  Who  can 
estimate  the  consequences  that  must  follow  the  annihilation 
of  the  cotton  crop  of  the  slaveholding  States  ?  I  do  not  un- 
dervalue the  importance  of  other  articles  of  commerce,  but  no 
calamity  could  befall  the  world  at  all  .comparable  to  the  sud- 
den loss  of  two  millions  of  bales  of  cotton  annually.  From 
the  deserts  of  Africa  to  the  Siberian  %vilds — from  Greenland  to 
the  Chinese  wall, — there  is  not  a  spot  of  earth  but  would  feel 
the  sensation.  The  factories  of  Europe  would  fall  with  a  con- 
cussion that  wonld  shake  down  castles,  palaces,  and  even 
thrones  ;  while  the  "  purse-proud,  elbowing  insolence  "  of  our 
Northern  monopolist  would  soon  disappear  forever  under  the 
smooth  speech  of  the  pedlar,  scourging  our  frontiers  for  a  live- 
lihood, or  the  bluff  vulgarity  of  the  South  Sea- whaler,  follow- 
ing the  harpoon  amid  storms  and  shoals.  Doubtless  the  abo- 
litionists think  we  could  grow  cotton  without  slaves,  or  that 
at  worst  the  reduction  of  the  crop  would  be  moderate  and 
temporary.  Such  gross  delusions  show  how  profoundly  igno- 
rant they  are  of  our  condition  here. 

You  declare  that  "  the  character  of  the  people  of  the  South 
has  long  been  that  of  hardened  infidels,  who  fear  not  God, 
and  have  no  regard  for  religion."  I  will  not  repeat  what  I 
said  in  my  former  letter  on  this  point.  I  only  notice  it  to  ask 
you  how  you  could  possibly  reconcile  it  to  your  profession  of 
a  Christian  spirit,  to  make  such  a  malicious  charge — to  defile 
your  soul  with  such  a  calumny  against  an  unoffending  people  ? 

m       '  *  + 


' 

HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ox  SLAVERY.  165 

' '  You  arc  old  ; 

Nature  in  you  stands  on  the  very  verge 
Of  her  confine.     You  should  be  ruled  and  led 
By  some  discretion." 

May  God  forgive  you. 

Akin  to  this,  is  the  wanton  and  furious  assault  made  on  us 
by  Mi-.  Macaulay,  in  his  late  speech  on  the  sugar  duties,  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  which  has  just  reached  me.  His 
denunciations  are  wholly  without  measure,  and,  among  other  .? 
things,  he  asserts  "  that  Slavery  in  the  United  States  wears 
its  worst  form  ;  that,  boasting  of  our  civilization  and  freedom, 
and  frequenting  Christian  churches,  we  breed  up  slaves,  nay, 
beget  children  for  slaves,  and  sell  them  at  so  much  a-head." 
Mr.  Macaulay  is  a  reviewer,  and  he  knows  that  he  is  "  no- 
thing if  not  critical."  The  practice  of  his  trade  has  given  him 
the  command  of  all  the  slashing  and  vituperative  phrases  of 
our  language,  and  the  turn  of  his  mind  leads  him  to  the  ha- 
bitual use  of  them.  He  is  an  author,  and  as  no  copy-right 
law  secures  for  him  from  this  country  a  consideration  for  his 
•writings,  he  is  not  only  independent  of  us,  but  naturally  hates 
everything  American.  He  is  the  representative  of  Edinburgh  ; 
it  is  his  cue  to  decry  our  Slavery,  and  in.  doing  so  he  may 
safely  indulge  the  malignity  of  his  temper,  his  indignation 
against  us,  and  his  capacity  for  railing.  He  has  suffered  once, 
for  being  in  advance  of  his  time  in  favor  of  abolition,  and  he 
does  not  intend  that  it  shall  be  forgotten,  or  his  claim  passed 
over,  to  any  crumb  which  may  now  be  thrown  to  the  vocife- 
rators  in  the  cause.  If  he  does  not  know  that  the  statements 
he  has  made  respecting  the  slaveholders  of  this  country  are 
vile  and  atrocious  falsehoods,  it  is  because  he  does  not  think  it 
worth  his  while  to  be  sure  he  speaks  the  truth,  so  that  he 
speaks  to  his  own  purpose. 

"  Hie  niger  est,  hunc  tu,  Romane  caveto." 

*  «* 


166  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

Such  exhibitions  as  he  has  made,  may  draw  the  applause 
of  a  British  House  of  Commons,  but  among  the  sound  and 
high-minded  thinkers  of  the  world  they  can  only  excite  con- 
tempt and  disgust. 

But  you  are  not  content  with  depriving  us  of  all  religious 
feelings.  You  assert  that  our  Slavery  has  also  "  demoralized 
the  Northern  States,"  and  charge  upon  it  not  only  every 
common  violation  of  good  order  there,  but  the  "Mormon 
murders,"  the  " Philadelphia  riots,"  and  all  "the  extermina- 
ting ware  against  the  Indians."  I  wonder  that  you  did  not 
increase  the  list  by  adding  that  it  had  caused  the  recent  in- 
undation of  the  Mississippi,  and  the  hurricane  in  the  West 
Indies — perhaps  the  insurrection  of  Rebecca,  and  the  war  in 
Scinde.  You  refer  to  the  law  prohibiting  the  transmission  of 
abolition  publications  through  the  mail,  as  proof  of  general 
corruption  !  You  could  not  do  so,  however,  without  noticing 
the  late  detected  espionage  over  the  British  post  office  by  a 
minister  of  state.  It  is  true,  as  you  say,  it  "  occasioned  a 
general  outburst  of  national  feeling" — from  the  opposition; 
and  a  "Parliamentary  enquiry  was  instituted" — that  is, 
moved,  but  treated  quite  cavalierly.  At  all  events,  though 
the  fact  was  admitted,  Sir  James  Graham  yet  retains  the 
Home  Department.  For  one,  I  do  not  undertake  to  condemn 
him.  Such  things  are  not  against  the  laws  and  usages  of 
your  country.  I  do  not  know  fully  what  reasons  of  state  may 
have  influenced  him  and  justified  his  conduct.  But  I  do 
know  that  there  is  a  vast  difference  in  point  of  "  national 
morality  "  between  the  discretionary  power  residing  in  your 
government  to  open  any  letter  in  the  public  post  office,  and  a 
well-defined  and  limited  law  to  prevent  the  circulation  of  cer- 
tain specified  incendiary  writings  by  means  of  the  United 
States  mail. 

Having  now  referred  to  everything  like  argument  on  the 

I 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  49 

But  alas  !  it  is  one  in  -which  we  know  that  a  large  portion  of 
the  human  race  can  never  be  gratified.  It  is  mockery,  to  say 
that  the  laborer  any  where  has  such  disposition  of  himself — 
though  there  may  be  an  approach  to  it  in  some  peculiar,  and 
those,  perhaps,  not  the  most  desirable,  states  of  society.  But 
unless  he  be  properly  disciplined  and  prepared  for  its  enjoy- 
ment, it  is  the  most  fatal  boon  that  could  be  conferred — fatal 
to  himself  and  others.  If  slaves  have  less  freedom  of  action 
than  other  laborers,  which  I  by  no  means  admit,  they  are 
saved  in  a  great  degree  from  the  responsibility  of  self-govern- 
ment, and  the  evils  springing  from  their  own  perverse  wills. 
Those  who  have  looked  most  closely  into  life,  and  know  how 
great  a  portion  of  human  misery  is  derived  from  these  sources 
— the  undecided  and  wavering  purpose — producing  ineffectu- 
al exertion,  or  indolence  with  its  thousand  attendant  evils — 
the  wayward  conduct — intemperance  or  profligacy— will  most 
appreciate  this  benefit.  The  line  of  a  slave's  duty  is  marked, 
out  with  precision,  and  he  has  no  choice  but  to  follow  it.  He 
is  saved  the  double  difficulty,  first  of  determining  the  proper 
course  for  himself,  and  then  of  summoning  up  the  energy 
which  will  sustain  him  in  pursuing  it. 

If  some  superior  power  should  impose  on  the  laborious  poor 
of  any  other  country— this  as  their  unalterable  condition — 
you  shall  be  saved  from  the  torturing  anxiety  concerning 
your  own  future  support,  and  that  of  your  children,  which 
now  pursues  you  through  life,  and  haunts  you  in  death — you 
shall  be  under  the  necessity  of  regular  and  healthful,  though 
not  excessive  labor — in  return,  you  shall  have  the  ample  sup- 
ply of  your  natural  wants — you  may  follow  the  instinct  of 
nature  in  becoming  parents,  without  apprehending  that  this 
supply  will  fail  yourselves  or  your  children — you  shall  be 
supported  and  relieved  in  sickness,  and  in  old  age,  wear  out 
the  remains  of  existence  among  familiar  scenes  and  accustom- 
5 


50  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

ed  associates,  without  being  driven  to  beg,  or  to  resort  to  the 
hard  and  miserable  charity  of  a  work-house— you  shall  of  ne- 
cessity be  temperate,  and  shall  have  neither  the  temptation 
nor  opportunity  to  commit  great  crimes,  or  practice  the  more 
destructive  vices — how  inappreciable  would  the  boon  be 
thought !  And  is  not  this  a  very  near  approach  to  the  con- 
dition of  our  slaves  ?  The  evils  of  their  situation  they  but 
lightly  feel,  and  would  hardly  feel  at  all,  if  they  were  not 
seduously  instructed  into  sensibility.  Certain  it  is,  that  if 
their  fate  were  at  the  absolute  disposal  of  a  council  of  the 
most  enlightened  philanthropists  in  Christendom,  with  unlim- 
ited resources,  they  could  place  them  in  no  situation  so  favora- 
ble to  themselves,  as  that  which  they  at  present  occupy.  But 
whatever  good  there  may  be,  or  whatever  mitigation  of  evil, 
it  is  worse  than  valueless,  because  it  is  the  result  of  Slavery. 

I  am  aware,  that  however  often  answered,  it  is  likely  to  be 
repeated  again  and  again — how  can  that  institution  be  tolera- 
ble, by  which  a  large  class  of  society  is  cut  off  from  the  hope 
of  improvement  in  knowledge ;  to  whom  blows  are  not  de- 
grading ;  theft  no  more  than  a  fault;  falsehood  and  the  want 
of  chastity  almost  venial,  and  in  which  a  husband  or  parent 
looks  with  comparative  indifference,  on  that  which,  to  a  free- 
man, would  be  the  dishonor  of  a  wife  or  child  ? 

But  why  not,  if  it  produces  the  greatest  aggregate  of  good  ? 
Sin  and  ignorance  are  only  evils,  because  they  lead  to  misery. 
It  is  not  our  institution,  but  the  institution  of  nature,  that  in 
the  progress  of  society  a  portion  of  it  should  be  exposed  to 
want,  and  the  misery  which  it  brings,  and  therefore  involved 
in  ignorance,  vice,  and  depravity.  In  anticipating  some  of 
the  good,  we  also  anticipate  a  portion  of  the  evil  of  civiliza- 
tion. But  we  have  it  in  a  mitigated  form.  The  want  and 
the  misery  are  unknown ;  the  ignorance  is  less  a  misfortune, 
because  the  being  is  not  the  guardian  of  himself,  and  partly 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  51 

on  account  of  that  involuntary  ignorance,  the  vice  is  less  vice 
— less  hurtful  to  man,  and  less  displeasing  to  God. 

There  is  something  in  this  word  Slavery  which  seems  to 
partake  of  the  qualities  of  the  insane  root,  and  distempers  the 
minds  of  men.  That  which  would  be  true  in  relation  to  one 
predicament,  they  misapply  to  another,  to  which  it  has  no  ap- 
plication at  all.  Some  of  the  virtues  of  a  freeman  would  be 
the  vices  of  slaves.  To  submit  to  a  blow,  would  be  degra- 
ding to  a  freeman,  because  he  is  the  protector  of  himself.  It 
is  not  degrading  to  a  slave — neither  is  it  to  a  priest  or  wo- 
man. And  is  it  a  misfortune  that  it  should  be  so  ?  The  free- 
mau  of  other  countries  is  compelled  to  submit  to  indignities 
hardly  more  endurable  than  blows — indignities  to  make  the 
sensitive  feelings  shrink,  and  the  proud  heart  swell ;  and  this 
very  name  of  freeman  gives  them  double  rancor.  If  when  a 
man  is  born  in  Europe,  it  were  certainly  foreseen  that  he  was 
destined  to  a  life  of  painful  labor — to  obscurity,  contempt, 
and  privation — would  it  not  be  mercy  that  he  should  be  rear- 
ed in  ignorance  and  apathy,  and  trained  to  the  endurance  of 
the  evils  he  must  encounter  ?  It  is  not  certainly  foreseen  as 
to  any  individual,  but  it  is  foreseen  as  to  the  great  mass  of 
those  born  of  the  laboring  poor ;  and  it  is  for  the  mass,  not 
for  the  exception,  that  the  institutions  of  society  are  to  pro- 
vide. Is  it  not  better  that  the  character  and  intellect  of  the 
individual  should  be  suited  to  the  station  which  he  is  to  occu- 
py ?  "Would  you  do  a  benefit  to  the  horse  or  the  ox,  by 
giving  him  a  cultivated  understanding  or  fine  feelings  ?  So 
far  as  the  mere,  laborer  has  the  pride,  the  knowledge,  or  the 
aspirations  of  a  freeman,  he  is  unfitted  for  his  situation,  and 
must  doubly  feel  its  infelicity.  If  there  are  sordid,  servile, 
and  laborious  offices  to  be  performed,  is  it  not  better  that 
there  should  be  sordid,  servile,  and  laborious  beings  to  per- 
form them  ?  If  there  were  infallible  marks  by  which  individ- 


52  .     HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

- 

uals  of  inferior  intellect,  and  inferior  character,  could  be  se- 
lected at  their  birth — would  not  the  interests  of  society  be 
served,  and  would  not  some  sort  of  fitness  seem  to  require, 
that  they  should  be  selected  for  the  inferior  and  servile  offi- 
ces ?  And  if  this  race  be  generally  marked  by  such  inferiori- 
ty, is  it  not  fit  that  they  should  fill  them  ? 

I  am  well  aware  that  those  whose  aspirations  are  after  a 
state  of  society  from  which  evil  shall  be  banished,  and  who 
look  in  life  for  that  which  life  will  never  afford,  contemplate 
that  all  the  offices  of  life  may  be  performed  without  contempt 
or  degradation — all  be  regarded  as  equally  liberal,  or  equally 
respected.  But  theorists  cannot  control  nature  and  bend  her 
to  their  views,  and  the  inequality  of  which  I  have  before 
spoken  is  deeply  founded  in  nature.  The  offices  which  em- 
ploy knowledge  and  intellect,  will  always  be  regarded  as  more 
liberal  than  those  which  require  the  labor  of  the  hands. 
When  there  is  competition  for  employment,  he  who  gives  it 
bestows  a  favor,  and  it  will  be  so  received.  He  will  assume 
superiority  from  the  power  of  dismissing  his  laborers,  and 
from  fear  of  this,  the  latter  will  practise  deference,  often 
amounting  to  servility.  Such  in  time  will  become  the  esta- 
blished relation  between  the  employer  and  the  employed,  the 
rich  and  the  poor.  If  want  be  accompanied  with  sordidness 
and  squalor,  though  it  be  pitied,  the  pity  will  be  mixed  with 
some  degree  of  contempt.  If  it  lead  to  misery,  and  misery 
to  vice,  there  will  be  disgust  and  aversion. 

What  is  the  essential  character  of  Slavery,  and  in  what 
does  it  differ  from  the  servitude  of  other  countries  ?  If  I 
should  venture  on  a  definition,  I  should  say  that  where  a  man 
is  compelled  to  labor  at  the  will  of  another,  and  to  give  him 
much  the  greater  portion  of  the  product  of  his  labor,  there 
Slavery  exists ;  and  it  is  immaterial  by  what  sort  of  compul- 
sion the  will  of  the  laborer  is  subdued.  It  is  what  no  human 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  53 

M 

being  would  do  without  some  sort  of  compulsion.  He  cannot 
be  compelled  to  labor  by  blows.  No — but  what  difference 
does  it  make,  if  you  can  inflict  any  other  sort  of  torture  which 
will  be  equally  effectual  in  subduing  the  will  ?  if  you  can 
starve  him,  or  alarm  him  for  the  subsistence  of  himself  or  his 
family  ?  And  is  it  not  under  this  compulsion  that  the  free- 
man laboi*s  ?  I  do  riot  mean  in  every  particular  case,  but  in 
the  general.  Will  any  one  be  hardy  enough  to  say  that  he  is 
at  his  own  disposal,  or  has  the  government  of  himself  ?  True, 
he  may  change  his  employer  if  he  is  'dissatisfied  with  his  con- 
duct towards  him ;  but  this  is  a  privilege  he  would  in  the 
majority  of  cases  gladly  abandon",  and  render  the  connexion 
between  them  indissoluble.  There  is  far  less  of  the  interest 
and  attachment  in  his  relation  to  his  employer,  which  so  often 
exists  between  the  master  and  the  slave,  and  mitigates  the 
condition  of  the  latter.  An  intelligent  English  traveller  has 
characterized  as  the  most  miserable  and  degraded  of  all  be- 
ings, "  a  masterless  slave."  And  is  not  the  condition  of  the 
laboring  poor  of  other  countries  too  often  that  of  masterless 
slaves  ?  Take  the  following  description  of  a  free  laborer,  no 
doubt  highly  colored,  quoted  by  the  author  to  whom  I  have 
before  referred. 

"  What  is  that  defective  being,  with  calfless  legs  and  stoop- 
ing shoulders,  weak  in  body  and  mind,  inert,  pusillanimous 
and  stupid,  whose  premature  wrinkles  and  furtive  glance,  tell 
of  misery  and  degradation  ?  That  is  an  English  peasant  or 
pauper,  for  the  words  are  synonimous.  His  "sire  was  a  pauper, 
and  his  mother's  milk  wanted  nourishment.  From  infancy  his 
food  has  been  bad,  as  well  as  insufficient ;  and  he  now  feels 
the  pains  of  unsatisfied  hunger  nearly  whenever  he  is  awake. 
But  half  clothed,  and  never  supplied  with  more  warmth  than 
suffices  to  cook  his  scanty  meals,  cold  and  wet  come  to  him, 
and  stay  by  him  with  the  weather.  He  is  married,  of  course ; 
5* 


54  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

for  to  this  he  would  have  been  driven  by  the  poor  laws,  even 
if  he  had  been;  as  he  never  was,  sufficiently  comfortable  and 
prudent  to  dread  the  burden  of  a  family.  But  though  in- 
stinct and  the  overseer  have  given  him  a  wife,  he  has  not 
tasted  the  highest  joys  of  husband  and  father.  "  His  partner 
and  his  little  ones  being  like  himself,  often  hungry,  seldom 
warm,  sometimes  sick  without  aid,  and  always  sorrowful 
without  hope,  are  greedy,  selfish,  and  vexing ;  so,  to  use  his 
own  expression,  he  hates  the  sight  of  them,  and  resorts  to  his 
hovel,  only  because  a  hedge  affords  less  shelter  from  the  wind 
and  rain.  Compelled  by  parish  law  to  support  his  family, 
which  means  to  join  them  in  consuming  an  allowance  from 
the  parish,  he  frequently  conspires  with  his  wife  to  get  that 
allowance  increased,  or  prevent  its  being-  diminished.  This 
brings  beggary,  trickery,  and  quarrelling,  and  ends  in  settled 
craft.  Though  he  have  the  inclination,  he  wants  the  courage 
to  become,  like  more  energetic  men  of  his  class,  a  poacher  or 
smuggler  on  a  large  scale,  but  ,he  pilfers  occasionally,  and 
teaches  his  children  to  lie  and  steal.  His  subdued  and  sla- 
vish manner  towards  his  great  neighbors,  shews  that  they 
treat  him  with  suspicion  and  harshness.  Consequently,  he  at 
once  dreads  and  hates  them  ;  but  he  will  never  harm  them 
by  violent  means.  Too  degraded  to  be  desperate,  he  is  only 
thoroughly  depraved.  His  miserable  career  will  be  short ; 
rheumatism  and  asthma  are  conducting  him  to  the  work- 
house; where  he  will  breathe  his  last  without  one  pleasant  re- 
collection, and  so  make  room  for  another  wretch,  who  may 
live  and  die  in  the  same  way."  And  this  description,  or  some 
other  not  much  less  revolting,  is  applied  to  "  the  bulk  of  the 
people,  the  great  body  of  the  people."  Take  the  following  de- 
scription of  the  condition  of  childhood,  which  has  justly  been 
called  eloquent.* 

*  Essays  of  Elia. 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  56 

"  The  children  of  the  very  poor  have  no  young  times  ;  it 
makes  the  very  heart  bleed,  to  over-hear  the  casual  street  talk 
between  a  poor  woman  and  her  little  girl,  a  woman  of  the 
better  sort  of  poor,  in  a  condition  father  above  the  squalid 
beings  we  have  been  contemplating.  It  is  not  of  toys,  of 
nursery  books,  of  summer  holidays,  (fitting  that  age,)  of  the 
promised  sight  or  play ;  of  praised  sufficiency  at  school.  It  is 
of  mangling  and  clear  starching;  of  the  price  of  coals,  or  of 
potatoes.  The  questions  of  the  child,  that  should  be  the  very 
outpourings  of  curiosity  in  idleness,  are  marked  with  forecast 
and  melancholy  providence.  It  has  come  to  be  a  woman, 
before  it  was  a  child.  It  has  learnt  to  go  to  market ;  it  chaf- 
fers, it  haggles,  it  envies,  it  murmurs  ;  it  is  knowing,  acute, 
sharpened  ;  it  never  prattles."  Imagine  such  a  description  ap- 
plied to  the  children  of  negro  slaves,  the  most  vacant  of  hu- 
man beings,  whose  life  is  a  holiday. 

And  this  people,  to  whom  these  horrors  are  familiar,  are 
those  who  fill  the  world  with  clamor,  concerning  the  injustice 
and  cruelty  of  Slavery.  I  speak  in  no  invidious  spirit.  Neith- 
er the  laws  nor  the  government  of  England  are  to  be  re- 
proached with  the  evils  which  are  inseparable  from  the  state 
of  their  society — as  little,  undoubtedly,  are  we  to  be  reproach- 
ed with  the  existence  of  our  Slavery.  Including  the  whole  of 
the  United  States — and  for  reasons  already  given,  tlie  whole 
ought  to  be  included,  as  receiving  in  no  unequal  degree  the 
benefit— may  we  not  say  justly  that  we  have  less  Slavery, 
and  more  mitigated  Slavery,  than  any  other  country  in 
the  civilized  world  ? 

That  they  are  called  free,  undoubtedly  aggravates  the  suf- 
ferings of  the  slaves  of  other  regions.  They  see  the  enormous 
inequality  which  exists,  and  feel  their  own  misery,  and  can 
hardly  conceive  otherwise,  than  that  there  is  some  injustice  in 
the  institutions  of  society  to  occasion  these.  They  regard  the 


56  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ox  SLAVERY. 

apparently  more  fortunate  class  as  oppressors,  and  it  adds 
bitterness  that  they  should  be  of  the  same  name  and  race. 
They  feel  indignity  more  acutely,  and  more  of  discontent  and 
evil  passion  is  excited  ;  they  feel  that  it  is  mockery  that  calls 
them  free.  Men  do  not  so  much  hate  and  envy  those  who 
are  separated  from  them  by  a  wide  distance,  and  some  appa- 
rently impassable  barrier,  as  those  who  approach  nearer  to 
their  own  condition,  and  with  whom  they  habitually  bring 
themselves  into  comparison.  The  slave  with  us  is  not  tanta- 
lized with  the  name  of  freedom,  to  which  his  whole  condition 
gives  the  lie,  and  would  do  so  if  he  were  emancipated  to- 
morrow. The  African  slave  sees  that  nature  herself  has 
marked  him  as  a  separate — and  if  left  to  himself,  I  have  no 
doubt  he  would  feel  it  to  be  an  inferior — race,  and  interposed 
a  barrier  almost  insuperable  to  his  becoming  a  member  of  the 
same  society,  standing  on  the  same  footing  of  right  and  privi- 
lege with  his  master. 

That  the  African  negro  is  an  inferior  variety  of  the  human 
race,  is,  I  think,  now  generally  admitted,  and  his  distinguish- 
ing characteristics  are  such  as  peculiarly  mark  him  out  for  the  . 
situation  which  he  occupies  among  us.  And  these  are  no 
less  marked  in  their  original  country,  than  as  we  have  daily 
occasion  to  observe  them.  The  most  remarkable  is  their  in- 
difference to  personal  liberty.  In  this  they  have  followed 
their  instincts  since  we  have  any  knowledge  of  their  continent, 
by  enslaving  each  other ;  but  contrary  to  the  experience  of 
every  race,  the  possession  of  slaves  has  no  material  effect  in 
raising  the  character,  and  promoting  the  civilization  of  the 
master.  Another  trait  is  the  want  of  domestic  affections,  and 
insensibility  to  the  ties  of  kindred.  In  the  travels  of  the  Lan- 
ders, after  speaking  of  a  single  exception,  in  the  person  of  a 
woman  who  betrayed  some  transient  emotion  in  passing  by 
the  country  from  which  she  had  been  torn  as  a  slave,  the 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  57 

authors  add :  "  that  Africans,  generally  speaking,  betray  the 
most  perfect  indifference  on  losing  their  liberty,  and  being 
deprived  of  their  relatives,  while  love  of  country  is  equally  a 
stranger  to  their  breasts,  as  social  tenderness  or  domestic  af- 
fection." "  Marriage  is  celebrated  by  the  nations  as  uncon- 
cernedly as  possible  ;  a  man  thinks  as  little  of  taking  a  wife, 
as  of  cutting  an  ear  of  corn — affection  is  altogether  out  of  the 
question."  They  are,  however,  very  submissive  to  authority, 
and  seem  to  entertain  great  reverence  for  chiefs,  priests,  and 
masters.  No  greater  indignity  can  be  offered  an  individual, 
than  to  throw  opprobrium  on  his  parents.  On  this  point  of 
their  character  I  think  I  have  remarked,  that,  contrary  to  the 
instinct  of  nature  in  other  races,  they  entertain  less  regard  for 
children  than  for  parents,  to  whose  authority  they  have  been 
accustomed  to  submit.  Their  character  is  thus  summed  up 
by  the  travellers  quoted  :  "  The  few  opportunities  we  have 
had  of  studying  their  characters,  induce  us  to  believe  that 
they  are  a  simple,  honest,  inoffensive,  but  weak,  timid,  and 
cowardly  race.  They  seem  to  have  no  social  tenderness,  very 
few  of  those  amiable  private  virtues  which  could  win  our  af- 
fections, and  none  of  those  public  qualities  that  claim  respect 
or  command  admiration.  The  love  of  country  is  not  strong 
enough  in  their  bosoms  to  incite  them  to  defend  it  against  a 
despicable  foe  ;  and  of  the  active  energy,  noble  sentiments, 
and  contempt  of  danger  which  distinguishes  the  North  Ame- 
rican tribes  and  other  savages,  no  traces  are  to  be  found 
among  this  slothful  people.  Regardless  of  the  past,  as  reck- 
less of  the  future,  the  present  alone  influences  their  actions. 
In  this  respect,  they  approach  nearer  to  the  nature  of  the 
brute  creation,  than  perhaps  any  other  people  on  the  face  of 
the  globe."  Let  me  ask  if  this  people  do  not  furnish  the  very 
material  out  of  which  slaves  ought  to  be  made,  and  whether 
it  be  not  an  improving  of  their  condition  to  make  them  the 


58  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

slaves  of  civilized  masters  ?  There  is  a  variety  in  the  charac- 
ter of  the  tribes.  Some  are  brutally  and  savagely  ferocious 
and  bloody,  whom  it  would  be  mercy  to  enslave.  From  the 
travellers'  account,  it  seems  not  unlikely  that  the  negro  race 
is  tending  to  extermination,  being  daily  encroached  on  and 
overrun  by  the  superior  Arab  race.  It  may  be,  that  when 
they  shall  have  been  lost  from  their  native  seats,  they  may 
be  found  numerous,  and  in  no  unhappy  condition,  on  the  con- 
tinent to  which  they  have  been  transplanted. 

The  opinion  which  connects  form  and  features  with  charac- 
ter and  intellectual  power,  is  one  so  deeply  impressed  on  the 
human  mind,  that  perhaps  there  is  scarcely  any  man  who 
does  not  almost  daily  act  upon  it,  and  in  some  measure  verify 
its  truth.  Yet  in  spite  of  this  intimation  of  nature,  and 
though  the  anatomist  and  physiologist  may  tell  them  that 
the  races  differ  in  every  bone  and  muscle,  and  in  the  propor- 
tion of  brain  and  nerves,  yet  there  are  some  who,  with  a  most 
bigoted  and  fanatical  determination  to  free  themselves  from 
what  they  have  prejudged  to  be  prejudice,  will  still  maintain 
that  this  physiognomy,  evidently  tending  to  that  of  the  brute, 
when  compared  to  that  of  the  Caucasian  race,  may  be  en- 
lightened by  as  much*  thought,  and  animated  by  as  lofty 
sentiment.  We  who  have  the  best  opportunity  of  judging, 
are  pronounced  to  be  incompetent  to  do  so,  and  to  be  blinded 
by  our  interest  and  prejudices — often  by  those  who  have  no 
opportunity  at  all — and  we  are  to  be  taught  to  distrust  or 
disbelieve  that  which  we  daily  observe,  and  familiarly  know, 
on  such  authority.  Our  prejudices  are  spoken  of.  But  the 
truth  is,  that,  until  very  lately,  since  circumstances  have  com- 
pelled us  to  think  for  ourselves,  we  took  our  opinions  on  this 
subject,  as  on  every  other,  ready  formed  from  the  country  of 
our  origin.  And  so  deeply  rooted  were  they,  that  we.  adhered 
to  them,  as  most  men  will  do  to  deeply  rooted  opinions,  even 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ox  SLAVERY.  59 

against  the  evidence  of  our  own  observation,  and  our  own 
senses.  If  the  inferiority  exists,  it  is  attributed  to  the  apathy 
and  degradation  produced  by  Slavery.  Though  of  the  hun- 
dreds of  thousand  scattered  over  other  countries,  where  the 
laws  impose  no  disability  upon  them,  none  has  given  evidence 
of  an  approach  to  even  mediocrity  of  intellectual  excellence; 
this,  too,  is  attributed  to  the  slavery  of  a  portion  of  their  race. 
They  are  regarded  as  a  servile  caste,  and  degraded  by  opin- 
ion, and  thus  every  generous  effort  is  repressed.  Yet  though 
this  should  be  the  general  effect,  this  very  estimation  is  calcu- 
lated to  produce  the  contrary  effect  in  particular  instances.  It 
is  observed  by  Bacon,  with  respect  to  deformed  persons  and 
eunuchs,  that  though  in  general  there  is  something  of  perver- 
sity in  the  character,  the  disadvantage  often  leads  to  extraor- 
dinary displays  of  virtue  and  excellence.  "  Whoever  hath 
any  thing  fixed  in  his  person  that  doth  kiduce  contempt,  hath 
also  a  perpetual  spur  in  himself,  to  rescue  and  deliver  himself 
from  scorn."  So  it  would  be  with  them,  if  they  were  capable 
of  European  aspirations— genius,  if  they  possessed  it,  would 
be  doubly  fired  with  noble  rage  to  rescue  itself  from  this  scorn. 
Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  ther&  may  not  be  found 
among  them  some  of  superior  capacity  to  many  white  per- 
sons ;  but  that  great  intellectual  powers  are,  perhaps,  never 
found  among  them,  and  that  in  general  their  capacity  is  very 
limited,  and  their  feelings  animal  and  coarse — fitting  them 
peculiarly  to  discharge  the  lower,  and  merely  mechanical  offi- 
ces of  society. 

And  why  should  it  not  be  so  ?  We  have  among  domestic 
animals  infinite  varieties,  distinguished  by  various  degrees  of 
sagacity,  courage,  strength,  swiftness,  and  other  qualities.  And 
it  may  be  observed,  that  this  is  no  objection  to  their  being 
derived  from  a  common  origin,  which  we  suppose  them  to 
have  had.  Yet  these  accidental  qualities,  as  they  may  be 


60  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

termed,  however  acquired  in  the  first  instance,  we  knoAv  that 
they  transmit  unimpaired  to  their  posterity  for  an  indefinite 
succession  of  generations.  It  is  most  important  that  these 
varieties  should  be  preserved,  and  that  each  should  be  .applied 
to  the  purposes  for  which  it  is  best  adapted.  No  philo-zoost, 
I  believe,  has  suggested  it  as  desirable  that  these  varieties 
should  be  melted  down  into  one  equal,  undistinguished  race 
of  curs  or  road  horses. 

Slavery,  as  it  is  said  in  an  eloquent  article  published  in  a 
Southern  periodical  work,*  to  which  I  am  indebted  for  other 
ideas,  "  has  done  more  to  elevate  a  degraded  race  in  the  scale 
of  humanity  ;  to  tame  the  savage  ;  to  civilize  the  barbarous ; 
to  soften  the  ferocious;  to  enlighten  the  ignorant,  and  to 
spread  the  blessings  of  Christianity  among  the  heathen,  than 
all  the  missionaries  that  philanthropy  and  religion  have  ever 
sent  forth."  Yet  unquestionable  as  this  is,  and  though  hu- 
man ingenuity  and  thought  may  be  tasked  in  vain  to  devise 
any  other  means  by  which  these  blessings  could  have  been 
conferred,  yet  a  sort  of  sensibility  which  would  be  only  mawk- 
ish and  contemptible,  if  it  were  not  mischievous,  affects  still 
to  weep  over  the  wrongs  of  "  injured  Africa."  Can  there  be 
a  doubt  of  the  immense  benefit  which  has  been  conferred  on 
the  race,  by  transplanting  them  from  their  native,  dark,  and 
barbarous  regions,  to  the  American  continent  and  islands  ? 
There,  three-fourths  of  the  race  are  in  a  state  of  the  most  de- 
plorable personal  Slavery.  And  those  who  are  not,  are  in  a 
scarcely  less  deplorable  condition  of  political  Slavery,  to  bar- 
barous chiefs — who  value  neither  life  nor  any  other  human 
right,  or  enthralled  by  priests  to  the  most  abject  and  atrocious 
superstitions.  Take  the  following  testimony  of  one  of  the  few 
disinterested  observers,  who  has  had  an  opportunity  of  ob- 

*  Southern  Literary  Messenger,  for  January,  1835.     Note  to  JDlack- 
stone's  Commentaries. 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  61 


serving  them  in  both  situations.*  "  The  wild  savage  is  the 
child  of  passion,  unaided  by  one  ray  of  religion  or  morality  to 
direct  his  course,  in  consequence  of  which  his  existence  is 
stained  with  every  crime  that  can  debase  human  nature  to  a 
level  with  the  brute  creation.  Who  can  say  that  the  slaves 
in  our  colonies  are  such  ?  Are  they  not,  by  comparison  with 
their  still  savage  brethren,  enlightened  beings  ?  Is  not  the 
West  Indian  negro,  therefore,  greatly  indebted  to  his  master 
for  making  him  what  he  is — for  having  raised  him  from  the 
state  of  debasement  in  which  he  was  born,  and  placed  him  in 
a  scale  of  civilized  society  ?  How  can  he  repay  him  I  He  is 
possessed  of  nothing — the  only  return  in  his  power  is  his 
servitude.  The  man  who  has  seen  the  wild  African,  roaming 
in  his  native  woods,  and  the  well  fed,  happy  looking  negro  of 
the  West  Indies,  may,  perhaps,  be  able  to  judge  of  their  com- 
parative happiness;  the  former,  I  strongly  suspect,  would  be 
glad  to  change  his  state  of  boasted  freedom,  starvation,  and 
disease,  to  become  the  slave  of  sinners,  and  the  commisera- 
tion of  saints."  It  was  a  useful  and  beneficent  work,  ap- 
proaching the  heroic,  to  tame  the  wild  horse,  and  subdue  him 
to  the  use  of  man ;  how  much  more  to  tame  the  nobler  ani- 
mal that  is  capable  of  reason,  and  subdue  him  to  usefulness  ? 
We  believe  that  the  tendency  of  Slavery  is  to  elevate  the 
character  of  the  master.  No  doubt  the  character — especially 
of  youth — has  sometimes  received  a  taint  and  premature 
knowledge  of  vice,  from  the  contact  and  association  with  ig- 
norant and  servile  beings  of  gross  manners  and  morals.  Yet 
still  we  believe  that  the  entire  tendency  is  to  inspire  disgust 
and  aversion  towards  their  peculiar  vices.  It  was  not  without 
a  knowledge  of  nature,  that  the  Spartans  exhibited  the  vices 
of  slaves  by  way  of  negative  example  to  their  children.  We 

*  Journal  of  an  officer  employed  in  the  expedition,  under  the  com- 
mand of  Capt.  Owen,  on  the  Western  Coast  of  Africa,  1822. 
6 


62  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLA  VERT. 

flatter  ourselves  that  the  view  of  this  degradation,  mitigated 
as  it  is,  has  the  effect  of  making  probity  more  strict,  the  pride 
of  character  more  high,  the  sense  of  honor  more  strong,  than 
is  commonly  found  where  this  institution  does  not  exist. 
Whatever  may  the  prevailing  faults  or  vices  of  the  masters  of 
slaves,  they  have  not  commonly  been  understood  to  be  those 
of  dishonesty,  cowardice,  meanness,  or  falsehood.  And  so 
most  unquestionably  it  ought  to  be.  Our  institutions  would 
indeed  be  intolerable  in  the  sight  -of  God  and  man,  if,  con* 
demning  one  portion  of  society  to  hopeless  ;gnorance  and 
comparative  degradation,  they  should  make  no  atonement  by 
elevating  the  other  class  by  higher  virtues,  and  more  liberal 
attainments — if,  besides  degraded  slaves,  there  should  he  ig- 
norant, ignoble,  and  degraded  freemen.  There  is  a  broad  and 
well  marked  line,  beyond  which  no  slavish  vice  should  be  re- 
garded with  the  least  toleration  or  allowance.  One  class  is 
cut  off  from  all  interest  in  the  State — that  abstraction  so  po- 
tent to  the  feelings  of  a  generous  nature.  The  other  must 
make  compensation  by  increased  assiduity  and  devotion. to  its 
honor  and  welfare.  The  love  of  wealth — so  laudable  when 
kept  within  proper  limits,  so  base  and  mischievous  when  it 
exceeds  them — so  infectious  in  its  example — an  infection  to 
which  I  fear  we  have  been  too  much  exposed — should  be  pur- 
sued by  no  arts  in  any  degree  equivocal,  or  at  any  risk  of 
injustice  to  others.  So  surely  as  there  is  a  just  and  wise 
governor  of  the  universe,  who  punishes-  the  sins  of  nations  and 
communities,  as  well  of  individuals,  so  surely  shall  we  suffer 
punishment,  if  we  are  indifferent  to  that  moral  and  intellectu- 
al cultivation  of  which  the  means  are  furnished  to  us,  and  to 
which  we  are  called  .and  incited  by  our  situation.  - 

I  would  to  heaven  1  could  express,  as  I  feel,  the  conviction 
how  necessary  this  cultivation  is,  not  only  to  our  prosperity 
and  consideration,  but  to  our  safety  and  very  existence.  We, 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  63 

the  shareholding  States,  are  in  a  hopeless  minority  in  our  own 
confederated  Republic — to  say  nothing  of  the  great  confede- 
racy of  civilized  States.  It  is  admitted,  I  believe,  not  only  by 
slaveholders,  but  by  others,  that  we  have  sent  to  our  common 
councils  more,  than  our  due  share  of  talent,  high  character 
and  eloquence.  Yet  in  spite  of  all  these  most  strenuously 
exerted,  measures  have  been  sometimes  adopted  which  we 
believed  to  be  dangerous  and  injurious  to  us,  and  threatening 
to  be  fatal.  What  would  be  our  situation,  if,  instead  of  these, 
we  were  only  represented  by  ignorant  and  grovelling  men, 
incapable  of  raising  their  views  beyond  a  job  or  petty  office, 
and  incapable  of  commanding  bearing  or  consideration  ?  May 
I  be  perm  tted  to  advert — by  no  means  invidiously — to  the 
late  contest  carried  on  by  South -Carolina  against  Federal 
authority,  and  so  happily  terminated  by  the  moderation  which 
prevailed  in  our  public  counsels.  I  have  often  reflected,  what 
one  circumstance,  more  than  any  other,  contributed  to  the 
successful  issue  of  a  contest,  apparently  so  hopeless,  in  which 
one  weak  and  divided  State  was  arrayed  against  the  whole 
force  of  the  Confederacy — unsustained,  and  uncountenanced, 
even  by  those  who  had  a  common  interest  with  her.  It  seem- 
ed to  me  to  be,  that  we  had  for  leaders  an  unusual  number  of 
men  of  great  intellectual  power,  co-operating  cordially  and  in 
good  faith,  and  commanding  respect  and  confidence  at  home 
and  abroad,  by  elevated  and  honorable  character.  It  was 
from  these  that  we — the  followers  at  home — caught  hope  and 
confidence  in  the  gloomiest  aspect  of  our  affairs.  These,  by 
their  eloquence  and  the  largeness  of  their  views,  at  least  shook 
the  faith  of  the  dominant  majority  in  the  wisdom  and  justice 
of  their  measures — or  the  practicability  of  carrying  them  into 
successful  effect ;  and  by  their  bearing  and  well  known  cha- 
racter, satisfied  them  that  South-Carolina  would  do  all  that 
she  had  pledged  herself  to  do.  Without  these,  how  different 


64  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

might  have  been  the  result  ?  And  who  shall  say  what  at 
this  daj7  would  have  been  the  aspect  of  the  now  flourishing 
fields  and  cities  of  South-Carolina  ?  Or  rather,  without  these, 
it  is  probable  the  contest  would  never  have  been  begun  ;  but 
that,  without  even  the  animation  of  a  struggle,  we  should 
have  sunk  silently  into  a  hopeless  and  degrading  subjection. 
"While  I  have  memory — in  the  extremity  of  age — in  sickness 
— under  all  the  reverses  and  calamities  of  life — I  shall  have 
one  source  of  pride  and  consolation — that  of  having  been  as- 
sociated— according  to  my  humbler  position — with  the  noble 
spirits  who  stood  prepared  to  devote  themselves  for  Liberty — 
the  Constitution — the  Union.  May  such  character  and  such 
talent  never  be  wanting  to  South-Carolina. 

I  am  sure  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  to  an  assembly  like 
this,  that  the  conduct  of  the  master  to  his  slave  should  be 
distinguished  by  the  utmost  humanity.  That  we  should  in- 
deed regard  them  as  wards  and  dependants  on  our  kindness, 
for  whose  well-being  in  every  way  we  are  deeply  responsible. 
This  is  no  less  the  dictate  of  wisdom  and  just  policy,  than  of 
right  feeling.  It  is  wise  with  respect  to  the  services  to  be 
expected  from  them.  I  have  never  heard  of  an  owner  whose 
conduct  in  their  management  was  distinguished  by  undue  se- 
verity, whose  slaves  were  not  in  a  great  degree  worthless  to 
him.  A  cheerful  and  kindly  demeanor,  with  the  expression 
of  interest  in  themselves  and  their  affairs,  is,  perhaps,  calcula- 
ted to  have  a  better  effect  on  them,  than  what  might  be  es- 
teemed more  substantial  favors  and  indulgences.  Through- 
out nature,  attachment  is  the  reward  of  attachment.  It  is 
wise,  too,  in  relation  to  the  civilized  'world  around  us,  to 
avoid  giving  occasion  to  the  odium  which  is  so  industriously 
excited  against  ourselves  and  our  institutions.  For  this  rea- 
son, public  opinion  should,  if  possible,  bear  even  more  strong- 
ly and  indignantly  than  it  does  at  present,  on  masters  who 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  OXJSLAVERV.  65 

practise  any  wanton  cruelty  on  their  slaves.  The  miscreant 
who  is  guilty  of  this,  not  only  violates  the  lav/  of  God  and  of 
humanity,  but  as  fur  as,  in  him  lies,  by  bringing 'odium  upon, 
endangers  the  institutions  of  his  country,  and  the  safety  of  his 
countrymen.  lie  casts  a  shade  upon  the  character  of  every 
individual  of  his  fellow-citizens,  and  does  every  one  of  them  a 
personal  injury.  So  of  him  who  indulges  in  any  odious  ex- 
cess of  intemperate  or  licentious  passion.  It  is  detached 
instances  of  this  sort,  of  which  the  existence  is,  perhaps,  hard- 
ly known  among  ourselves,  that,  collected  with  pertinacious 
and  malevolent  industry,  affords  the  most  formidable  weapons 
to  the  mischievous  zealots,  who  array  them  as  being  charac- 
teristic of  our  general  manners  and  state  of  society. 

I  would  by  no  means  be  understood  to  intimate,  that  a 
vigorous,  as  well  as  just  government,  should  not  be  exercised 
over  slaves.  This  is  part  of  our  duty  towards  them,  no  less 
obligatory  than  any  other  duty,  and  no  less  necessary  towards 
their  well-being  than  to  ours.  I  believe  that  at  least  as  much 
injiuy  has  been  done  and  suffering  inflicted  by  weak  and  inju- 
dicious indulgence,  as  by  inordinate  severity.  .He  whose  busi- 
ness is  to  labor,  should  be  made  to  labor,  and  that  with  due 
diligence,  and  should  be  vigorously  restrained  from  excess  or 
vice.  This  is  no  less  necessary  to  his  happiness  than  to  his 
usefulness.  The  master  who  neglects  this,  not  only  makes 
his  slaves  unprofitable  to  himself,  but  discontented  and  wretch- 
ed— a  nuisance  to  his  neighbors  and  to  society. 

I  have  said  that  the  tendency  of  our  institution  is  to  elevate 
the  female  character,  as  well  as  that  of  the  other  sex,  and  for 
similar  reasons.  In  other  states  of  society,  there  is  no  well 
defined  limit  to  separate  virtue  and  vice.  There  are  degrees 
of  vice,  from  the  most  flagrant  and  odious,  to  that  which 
scarcely  incurs  the  censure  of  society.  Many  individuals  oc- 
6* 


66.  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

cupy  an  unequivocal  position ;  and  as  society  becomes  accus- 
tomed to  this,  there  will  be  a  less  peremptory  requirement  of 
purity  in  female  manners  and  conduct ;  and  often  the  whole 
of  the  society  will  be  in  a  tainted  and  uncertain  condition  with 
respect  to  female  virtue.  Here,  there  is  that  certain  and 
marked  line,  above  which  there  is  no  toleration  or  allowance 
for  any  approach  to  license  of  manners  or  conduct,  and  she 
who  fails  below  it,  will  fall  far  below  even  the  slave.  How 
many  will  incur  this  penalty  ? 

And  permit  me  to  say,  that  this  elevation  of  the  female 
character  is  no  less  important  and  essential  to  us,  than  the 
moral  and  intellectual  cultivation  of  the  other  sex.     It  would 
indeed  be  intolerable,  if,  when  one  class  of  the  society  is  ne- 
cessarily degraded  in  this  respect,  no  compensation  were  made 
by  the  superior  elevation  and  purity  of  the  other.     Not  only 
essential  purity  of  conduct,  but  the  utmost  purity  of  manners, 
and  I  will  add,  though  it  may  incur  the  formidable  charge  of 
affectation  or  prudery, — a  greater  severity  of  decorum  than  is 
required  elsewhere,  is  necessary   among  us.     Always  should 
'be  strenuously  resisted  the  attempts  which  have  been  some- 
times made  to  introduce  among  us  the  freedom  of  foreign 
European,  and  especially  of  continental  manners.     This  free- 
dom, the  remotest  in  the  world  from  that  which  sometimes 
springs  from  simplicity  of  manners,  is  calculated  and  common- 
ly intended  to  confound  the  outward  distinctions  of  virtue  and 
vice.     It  is  to  prepare  the  way  for  licentiousness — to  produce 
this  effect— that  if  those  who  are  clothed  with  the  outward 
color  and  garb  of  vice,  may  be  well  received  by  society,  those 
who  are  actually  guilty  may  hope  to-  be  so  too.     It  may  be 
said,  that  there  is  often   perfect  purity  where  there  is  very 
great  freedom  of  manners.     And,  I  have  no  doubt,  this  may 
be  true  in  particular  instances,  but  it  is  never  true  of  any  sod- 


HAEPEE'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  6  V 

ety  in  which  this  is  the  general  state  of  manners.  What 
guards  can  there  be  to  purity,  when  every  thing  that  may 
possibly  be  done  innocently,  is  habitually  practised  ;  when 
there  can  be  no  impropriety  which  is  not  vice.  And  what 
•  must  be  the  depth  of  the  depravity  when  there  is  a  departure 
from  that  which  they  admit  as  principle.  Besides,  things 
which  may  perhaps  be  practised  innocently  where  they  are 
familiar,  produce  a  moral  dilaceration  in  the  course  of  their 
being  introduced  where  they  are  new.  Let  us  say,  we  will 
not  have  the  manners  of  South-Carolina  changed. 

T  have  before  said  that  free  labor  is  cheaper  than  the  labor 
of  slaves,  and  so  far  as  it  is  so  the  condition  of  the  free  laborer 
is  worse.  But  I  think  President  Dew  has  sufficiently  shown 
that  this  is  only  true  of  Northern  countries.  It  is  matter  of 
familiar  remark  that  the  tendency  of  warm  climates  is  to  relax 
the  human  constitution  and  indispose  to  labor.  The  earth 
yields  abundantly — m  some  regions  almost  spontaneously — 
under  the  influence  of  the  sun,  and  the  means  of  supporting- 
life  are  obtained  with  but  slight  exertion  ;  and  men  will  use 
no  greater  exertion  than  is  necessary  to  the  purpose.  This 
very  luxuriance  of  vegetation,  where  no  other  cause  concurs, 
renders  the  air  less  salubrious,  and  even  when  positive  malady 
does  not  exist,  the  health  is  habitually  impaired.  Indolence 
renders  the  constitution  more  liable  to  these  effects  of  the  at- 
mosphere, and  these  again  aggravate  the  indolence.  Nothing 
but  the  coercion  of  Slavery  can  overcome  the  repugnance  to 
labor  under  these  circumstances,  and  by  subduing  the  soil, 
improve  and  render  wholesome  the  climate. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  there  does  not  now  exist  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  a  people  in  a  -tropical  climate,  or  one 
approaching  to  it,  where  Slavery  does  not  exist,  that  is 
in  a  state  of  high  civilization,  or  exhibits  the  energies  which 
mark  the  progress  towards  it.  Mexico  and  the  South  Amen- 


68  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ox  SLAVERY. 

can  Republics,*  starting  on  their  new  career  of  independence, 
and  having  gone  through  a  farce  of  abolishing  slavery,  are 
rapidly  degenerating,  even  from  semi-barbarism.  The  only 
portion  of  the  South  American  continent  which  seems  to  be 
making  any  favorable  progress,  in  spite  of  a  weak  and  arbi- 
trary civil  government,  is  Brazil,  in  which  slavery  has  been 
retained.  Cuba,  of  the  same  race  with  the  continental  repub- 
lics, is  daily  and  rapidly  advancing  in  industry  and  civiliza- 
tion ;  and  this  is  owing  exclusively  to  her  slaves.  St.  Do- 
mingo is  struck  out  of  the  map  of  civilized  existence,  and  the 
British  West  Indies  will  shortly  be  so.  On  the  other  conti- 
nent, Spain  and  Portugal  are  degenerate,  and  their  rapid  pro- 
gress is  downward.  Their  southern  coast  is  infested  by  dis- 

*  The  author  of  England  and  America  thus  speaks  of  the  "Colom- 
bian Republic : 

"  During  some  years,  this  colony  has  been  an  independent  state  ; 
but  the  people  dispersed  over  this  vast  and  fertile  plain,  have  almost 
ceased  to  cultivate  the  good  land  at  their  disposal ;  they  subsist  prin- 
cipally, many  of  them  entirely,  on  the  flesh  of  wild  cattle  ;  they  have 
lost  most  of  the  arts  of  civilized  life ;  not  a  few  of  them  are  in  a  state 
of  deplorable  misery;  and  if  they  should  continue,  as  it  seems  proba- 
ble they  will,  to  retrograde  as  at  present,  the  beautiful  pamp'as  of 
Buenos  Ayres  will  soon  be  fit  for  another  experiment -in  colonization. 
Slaves,  black  or  yellow,  would  have  cultivated  those  plains,  would 
have  kept  together,  would  have  been  made  to  assist  each  other ; 
would,  by  keeping  together  and  assisting  each  other,  have  raised  a 
surplus  produce  exchangeable  in  distant  markets  ;  would  have  kept 
their  masters  together  for  the  sake  of  markets  ;  would,  by  combina- 
tion of  labor,  have  preserved  among  their  masters  the  arts  and  habits 
of  civilized  life."  Yet  this  writer,  the  whole  practical  effect  of  whose 
work,  whatever  he  may  have  thought  or  intended,  is  to  show  the  ab- 
solute necessity,  and  immense  benefits  of  Slavery,  finds  it  necessary 
to  add,  I  suppose  in  deference  to  the  general  sentiment  of  his  countrv- 
men,  "that  Slavery  might  have  done  all  this,  seems  not  more  plain, 
than  that  so  much  good  would  have  been  bought  too  dear,  if  its  price 
had  been  Slavery."  Well  may  we  say  that  the  word  makes  men  mad  . 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  69 

ease,  arising  from  causes  which  industry  might  readily  over- 
come, but  that  industry  they  will  never  exert.  Greece  is  still 
barbarous,  and  scantily  peopled.  The  work  of  an  English 
physician,  distinguished  by  strong  sense  and  power  of  obser- 
vation,* gives  a  most  affecting  picture  of  the  condition  of 
Italy, — especially  south  of  the  Appenines.  With  the  decay 
of  industry,  the  climate  has  degenerated  towards  the  condition 
from  which  it  was  first  rescued  by  the  labor  of  slaves.  There 
is  poison  in  every  man's  veins,  affecting  the  very  springs  of 
life,  dulling  or  extinguishing,  with  the  energies  of  the  body, 
all  energy  of  mind,  and  often  exhibiting  itself  in  the  most  ap- 
palling forms  of  disease.  From  year  to  year  the  pestilential 
atmosphere  creeps  forward,  narrowing  the  circles  within  which 
it  is  possible  to  sustain  human  life.  With  disease  and  misery, 
industry  still  more  rapidly  decays,  and  if  the  process  goes  on, 
it  seems  that  Italy  too  will  soon  be  ready  for  another  experi- 
ment in  colonization. 

Yet  once  it  was  not  so,  when  Italy  was  possessed  by  the 
masters  of  slaves  ;  when  Rome  contained  her  millions,  and 
Italy  was  a  garden  ;  when  their  iron  energies  of  body  corres- 
ponded with  the  energies  of  mind  which  made  them  conquer- 
ors in  every  climate  and  on  every  soil ;  rolled  the  tide  of 
conquest,  not  as  in  later  times,  from  the  South  to  the  North  ; 
extended  their  laws  and  their  civilization,  and  created  them 
lords  of  the  earth. 

"  What  conflux  issuing  forth  or  entering  in  ; 
Praetors,  pro-consuls  to  their  provinces, 
Hasting,  or  on  return  in  robes  of  state. 
Lictors  and  rods,  the  ensigns  of  their  power, 
Legions  and  cohorts,  turms  of  horse  and  wings  : 
Or  embassies  from  regions  far  remote, 
In  various  habits,  on  the  Appian  road, 

*  Johnson  on  Change  of  Air. 


70  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

Or  on  th'  Emilian  ;  some  from  farthest  South, 

Svene,  and  where  the  shadow  both  way  falls, 

Meroe,  Nilotic  isle,  and 'more  to  West, 

The  realms  of  Bocchus  to  the  Blackmoor  sea ; 

From  th'  Asian  kings,  and  Parthian  among  these  ; 

From  India  and  the  golden  Chersonese, 

And  utmost  India's  isle,  Taprobona, 

Dusk  faces,  with  white  silken  turbans  wreathed ; 

From  Gallia,  Gades,  and  the  British  West ; 

Germans,  and  Scythians,  and  Sarmatians,  North 

Beyond  Danubius  to  the  Tauric  Pool ! 

All  nations  now  to  Rome  obedience  pay." 

Such  was,  and  such  is,  the  picture  of  Italy.  Greece  pre- 
sents a  contrast  not  less  striking.  What  is  the  cause  of  the 
great  change  ?  Many  causes,  no  doubt,  have  occurred  ;  but 
though 

"  War,  famine,  pestilence,  and  flood  and  fire, 
Have  dealt  upon  the  seven-hilled  city's  pride," 

I  will  venture  to  say  that  nothing  has  dealt  upon  it  more 
heavily  than  the  loss  of  domestic  slavery.  Is  not  this  evident  ? 
If  they  had  slaves,  with  an  energetic  civil  government,  would 
the  deadly  miasma  be  permitted  to  overspread  the  Campagna, 
and  invade  Rome  herself?  Would  not  the  soil  be  cultivated, 
and  the  wastes  reclaimed  ?  A  late  traveller*  mentions  a  ca- 
nal, cut  for  miles  through  rock  and  mountain,  for  the  purpose 
of  carrying  off  the  waters  of  the  lake  of  Celano,  on  which 
thirty  thousand  Roman  slaves  were  employed  for  el  even  years, 
and  which  remains  almost  perfect  to  the  present  day.  ThiSj 
the  government  of  Naples  was  ten  years  in  repairing  with  an 
hundred  workmen.  The  imperishable,  works  of  Rome  which 
remain  to  the  present  day  were,  for  the  most  part,  executed 
by  slaves.  How  different  would  be  the  condition  of  Naples, 

*  Eight  days  in  the  Abruzzi. — Llackwood's  Magazine,  November, 

1835. 

' 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  71 

if  for  her  wretched  lazzaroni  were  substituted  negro  slaves, 
employed  in  rendering  productive  the  plains  whose  fertility 
now  serves  only  to  infect  the  air ! 

To  us,  on  whom  this  institution  is  fastened,  and  who  could 
not  shake  it  off,  even  if  we  desired  to  do  so,  the  great  repub- 
lics of  antiquity  offer  instruction  of  inestimable  value.  They 
teach  us  that  slavery  is  compatible  with  the  freedom,  stabili- 
ty, and  long  duration  of  civil  government,  with  denseness  of 
population,  great  power,  and  the  highest  civilization.  And  in 
what  respect  does  this  modern  Europe,  which  claims  to  give 
opinions  to  the  world,  so  far  excel  them — notwithstanding  the 
immense  advantages  of  the  Christian  religion  and  the  discove- 
ry of  the  art  of  printing?  They  are  not  more  free,  nor  have 
performed  more  glorious  actions,  nor  displayed  more  exalted 
virtue.  In  the  higher  departments  of  intellect — in  all  that 
relates  to  taste  and  imagination — they  will  hardly  venture  to 
claim  equality.  Where  they  have  gone  beyond  them  in  the 
results  of  mechanical  philosophy,  or  discoveries  which  contri- 
bute to  the  wants  and  enjoyments  of  physical  life,  they  have 
done  so  by  the  help  of  means  with  which  they  were  furnished 
by  the  Grecian  mind — the  mother  of  civilization — and  only 
pursued  a  little  further  the  tract  which  that  had  always  point- 
ed out.  In  the  development  of  intellectual  power,  they  will 
hardly  bear  comparison.  Those  noble  republics  in  the  pride 
of  their  strength  and  greatness,  may  have  anticipated  for  them- 
selves— as  some  of  their  poets  did  for  them, — an  everlasting 
duration  and  predominance.  But  they  could  not  have  antici- 
pated, that  when  they  had  fallen  under  barbarous  arms,  that 
when  arts  and  civilization  were  lost,  and  the  whole  earth  in 
darkness — the  first  light  should  break  from  their  tombs — that 
in  a  renewed  world,  unconnected  with  them  by  ties  of  locality, 
language  or  descent,  they  should  still  be  held  the  models  of 
all  that  is  profound  in  science,  or  elegant  in  literature,  or  all 


72  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

that  is  great  in  character,  or  elevated  in  imagination.  And 
perhaps  when  England  herself,  who  now  leads  the  war  with 
which  we  are  on  all  sides  threatened,  shall  have  fulfilled  her 
mission,  and  like  the  other  glorious  things  of  the  earth,  shall 
have  passed  away ;  when  she  shall  have  diffused  her  noble 
race  and  noble  language,  her  laws,  her  literature,  and  her 
civilization,  over  all  quarters  of  the  earth,  and  shall  perhaps 
be  overrun  by  some  Northern  horde — sunk  into  an  ignoble 
and  anarchical  democracy,*  or  subdued  to  the  dominion  of 
some  CaBsar, — demagogue  and  despot, — then,  in  Southern  re- 
gions, there  may  be  found  many  republics,  triumphing  in 
Grecian  arts  and  civilization,  and  worthy  of  British  descent 
and  Roman  institutions. 

If,  after  a  time,  when  the  mind  and  almost  the  memory  of 
the  republic  were  lost,  Romans  degenerated,  they  furnish  con- 
clusive evidence  that  this  was  owing  not  to  their  domestic, 
but  to  their  political  Slavery.  The  same  thing  is  observed 
over  all  the  Eastern  monarchies ;  and  so  it  must  be,  wherever 
property  is  insecure,  and  it  is  dangerous  for  a  man  to  raise 
himself  to  such  eminence  by  intellectual  or  moral  excellence, 
as  would  give  him  influence  over  his  society.  So  it  is  in 
Egypt ;  and  the  other  regions  bordering  the  Mediterranean, 
which  once  comprehended  the  civilization  of  the  world,  where 
Carthage,  Tyre,  and  Phoenicia  flourished.  In  short,  the  un- 
contradicted  experience  of  the  world  is,  that  in  the  Southern 
States  where  good  government  and  predial  and  domestic  Sla- 
very are  found,  there  are  prosperity  and  greatness ;  where 
either  of  these  conditions  is  wanting,  degeneracy  and  barba- 
rism. The  former,  however,  is  equally  essential  in  all  climates 
and  under  all  institutions.  And  can  we  suppose  it  to  be  the 

*  I  do  not  use  the  word  democracy  in  the  Athenian  sense,  but  to 
describe  the  government  in  -which  the  slave  and  his  master  have  an 
equal  voice  in  public  affairs. 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  73 

design  of  the  Creator,  that  these  regions,  constituting  half  of 
the  earth's  surface,  and  the  more  fertile  half,  and  more  capa- 
ble of  sustaining  life,  should  be  abandoned  forever  to  depopu- 
lation and  barbarism  ?  Certain  it  is  that  they  will  never  be 
reclaimed  by  the  labor  of  freemen.  In  our  own  country,  look 
at  the  lower  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  which  is  capable  of  be- 
ing made  a  far  greater  Egypt.  In  our  own  State,  there  are 
extensive  tracts  of  the  most  fertile  soil,  which  are  capable  of 
being  made  to  swarm  with  life.  These  are  at  present  pesti- 
lential swamps,  and  valueless,  because  there  is  abundance  of 
other  fertile  soil  in  more  favorable  situations,  which  demand 
all  and  more  than  all  the  labor  which  our  country  can  sup- 
ply. Are  these  regions  of  fertility  to  be  abandoned  at  once 
and  forever  to  the  alligator  and  tortoise — with  here  and  there 
perhaps  a  miserable,  shivering,  crouching  free  black  savage  ? 
Does  not  the  finger  of  heaven  itself  seem  to  point  to  a  race-of 
men — not  to  be  enslaved  by  us,  but  already  enslaved,  and 
who  will  be  in  every  way  benefitted  by  the  change  of  masters 
— to  whom  such  climate  is  not  uncongenial,  who,  though  dis- 
posed to  indolence,  are  yet  patient  and  capable  of  labor,  on 
whose  whole  features,  mind  and  character,  nature  has  indelibly 
written — slave ; — and  indicate  thai  we  should  avail  ourselves 
of  these  in  fulfilling  the  first  great  command  to  subdue  and 
replenish  the  earth. 

It  is  true  that  this  labor  will  be  dearer  than  that  of  North- 
ern countries,  where,  under  the  name  of  freedom,  they  obtain 
cheaper  and  perhaps  better  slaves.  Yet  it  is  the  best  we  can. 
have,  and  this  too  has  its  compensation.  We  see  it  compen- 
sated at  present  by  the  superior  value  of  our  agricultural  pro- 
ducts. And  this  superior  value  they  must  probably  always 
have.  The  Southern  climate  admits  of  a  greater  variety  of 
productions.  Whatever  is  produced  in  Northern  climates, 
the  same  thing,  or  something  equivalent,  may  be  produced 
7 


74  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

in  the  Southern.  But  the  Northern  have  no  equivalent  for 
the  products  of  Southern  climates.  The  consequence  will  be, 
that  the  products  of  Southern  regions  -will  be  demanded  all 
over  the  civilized  world.  '  The  agricultural  products  of  North- 
ern regions  are  chiefly  for  their  own  consumption-.  They  must 
therefore  apply  themselves  to  the  manufacturing  of  articles  of 
luxury,  elegance,  convenience,  or  necessity, — which  requires 
cheap  labor — for  the  purpose  of  exchanging  them  with  their 
Southern  neighbors.  Thus  nature  herself  indicates  that  agri- 
culture should  be  the  predominating  employment  in  Southern 
countries,  and  manufactures  in  Northern.  Commerce  is  ne- 
cessary to  both — but  less  indispensable  to  the  Southern, 
which  produce  within  themselves  a  greater  variety  of  things 
desirable  to  life.  They  will'  therefore  have  somewhat  less  of 
the  commercial  spirit.  We  must  avail  ourselves  of  such  la- 
bor as  we  can  command.  The  slave  must  labor,  and  is  inured 
to  it';  while  the  necessity  of  energy  in  his  government,  of 
watchfulness,  and  of  preparation  and  power  to  suppress  insur- 
rection, added  to  the  moral  force  derived  from  the  habit  of 
command,  may  help  to  prevent  the  degeneracy  of  the  master. 
The  task  of  keeping  down  insurrection  is  commonly  sup- 
posed by  those  who  are  strangers  to  our  institutions,  to  be  a 
very  formidable  one.  Even  among  ourselves,  accustomed  as 
we  have  been  to  take  our  opinions  on  this  as  on  every  other 
subject,  ready  formed  from  those  whom  we  regarded  as  in- 
structors, in  the  teeth  of  our  own  observation  and  experience, 
fears  have  been  entertained  which  are  absolutely  ludicrous. 
We  have  been  supposed  to  be  nightly  reposing  over  a  mine, 
which  may  at  any  instant  explode  to  our  destruction.  The 
first  thought  of  a  foreigner  sojourning  in  one  of  our  cities, 
who  is  awakened  by  any  nightly  alarm,  is  of  servile  insurrec- 
tion and  massacre.  Yet  if  any  thing  is  certain  in  human 
affairs,  it  is  certain  and  from  the  most  obvious  considerations, 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  75 

that  we  are  more  secure  in  this  respect  than  any  civilized  and 
fully  peopled  society  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  In  every 
such  society,  iher&  is  a  much  larger  proportion  than  with  us, 
of  persons  who  have  more,  to  gain  than  to  lose  by  the  over- 
throw of  government,  and  the  embroiling  of  social  order.  It 
is  in  such  a  state  of  things  that  those  who  were  before  at  the 
bottom  of  society,  rise  to  the  surface.  From  causes  already 
considered,  they  are  peculiarly  apt  to  consider  their' sufferings 
the  result  of  injustice  a"nd  misgovernment,  and  to  be  ranco- 
rous and  embittered  accordingly.  They  have  every  excite- 
ment, therefore,  of  resentful  passion,  and  every  temptation 
which  the  hope  -of  increased  opulence,  or  power  or  considera- 
tion can  hold  out,  to  urge  .them  to  innovation  and  revolt. 
Supposing  the  same  disposition  to  exist  in  equal  degree  among 
our  slaves,  what  are  their  comparative  means  or  prospect  of 
gratifying  it  ?  The  poor  of  other  countries  are  called  free. 
They  have,  at  least,  no  one  interested  to  exercise  a  daily  and 
nightly  superintendence  and  control  over  their  conduct  and 
actions.  Emissaries  of  their  class  may  traverse,  unchecked, 
every  portion  of  the  country,  for  the  purpose  of  organizing  in- 
surrection. From  their  greater  intelligence,  they  have  great- 
er means  of  communicating  with  each  other.  They  may  pro- 
cure and  secrete  arms.  It  is  not  alone  the  ignorant,  or  those 
who  are  commonly  called  the  poor,  that  will  be  tempted  to 
revolution.  There  will  be  many  disappointed  men,  and  men 
of  desperate  fortune — men  perhaps  of  talent  and  daring — to 
combine  them  and  direct  their  energies.  Even  those  in  the 
higher  ranks  of  society  who  contemplate  no  sach  result,  will 
contribute  to  it,  by  declaiming  on  their  hardships  and  rights. 
With  us,  it  is  almost  physically-  impossible  that  there 
should  be  any  Very  extensive  combination  among  the  slaves. 
It  is  absolutely  impossible  that  they  should  procure  and  con- 
ceal efficient  arms.  Their  emissaries  traversing  the  country, 


76  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

would  carry  their  commissions  on  their  foreheads.  If  we  sup- 
pose among  them  an  individual  of  sufficient  talent  and  ener- 
gy to  qualify  him  for  a  revolutionary  leader,  he  could  not  be 
so  extensively  known  as  to  command  the  confidence,  which 
would  be  necessary  to  enable  him  to  combine  and  direct  them. 
Of  the  class  of  freemen,  there  would  be  no  individual  so  poor 
or  degraded  (with  the  exception  perhaps  of  here  and  there  a 
reckless  and  desperate  outlaw  and  felon)  who  would  not  have 
much  to  lose  by  the  success  of  such  an  attempt ;  every  one, 
therefore,  would  be  vigilant  and  active  to  detect  and  suppress 
it.  Of  all  impossible  things,  one  of  the  most  impossible  would 
be  a  successful  insurrection  of  our  slaves,  originating  with 
themselves. 

Attempts  at  insurrection  have  indeed  been  made — excited, 
as  we  believe,  by  the  agitation  of  the  abolitionists  and  de- 
claimers  on  Slavery ;  but  these  have  been  in  every  instance 
promptly  suppressed.  We  fear  not  to  compare  the  riots,  dis- 
order, revolt  and  bloodshed,  which  have  been  committed  in1 
our  own,  with  those  of  any  other  civilized  communities,  dur- 
ing the  same  lapse  of  time.  And  let  it  observed  under  what 
extraordinary  circumstances  our  peace  has  been  preserved. 
For  the  last  half  century,  one  half  of  our  population  has  been 
admonished  in  terms  the  most  calculated  to  madden  and 
excite,  that  they  are  the  victims  of  the  most  grinding  and 
cruel  injustice  and  oppression.  We  know  that  these  exhorta- 
tions continually  reach  them,  through  a  thousand  channels 
which  we  cannot  detect,  as  if  carried  by  the  birds  of  the  air — 
and  what  human  being,  especially  when  unfavorably  distin- 
guished by  outward  circumstances,  is  not  ready  to  give  credit 
when  he  is  told  that  he  is  the  victim  of  injustice  and  oppres- 
sion ?  In  effect,  if  not  in  terms,  they  have  been  continually 
exhorted  to  insurrection.  The  master  has  been  painted  as  a 
criminal,  tyrant  and  robber,  justly  obnoxious  to  the  vengeance 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  77 

of  God  and  man,  and  they  have  been  assured  of  the  counte- 
nance and  sympathy,  if  not  of  the  active  assistance,  of  all  the 
rest  of  the  world.  We  ourselves  have  in  some  measure  plead- 
ed guilty  to  the  impeachment.  It  is  not  long  since  a  great 
majority  of  our  free  population,  servile  to  the  opinions  of  those 
whose  opinions  they  had  been  accustomed  to  follow,  would 
have  admitted  Slavery  to  be  a  great  evil,  unjust  and  indefen- 
sible in  principle,  and  only  to  be  vindicated  by  the  stern  ne- 
cessity which  was  imposed  upon  us.  Thus  stimulated  by 
every  motive  and  passion  which  ordinarily  actuate  human 
beings — not  as  to  a  criminal  enterprise,  but  as  to  something 
generous  and  heroic — what  has  been  the  result  ?  A  few  im- 
becile and  uncombined  plots — in  every  instance  detected 
before  they  broke  out  into  action,  and  which  perhaps  if  unde- 
tected would  never  have  broken  into  action.  One  or  two 
sudden,  unpremeditated  attempts,  frantic  in  their  character,  if 
not  prompted  by  actual  insanity,  and  these  instantly  crushed. 
As  it  is,  we  are  not  less  assured  of  safety,  order,  and  internal 
peace,  than  any  other  people ;  and  but  for  the  pertinacious 
and  fanatical  agitations  of  the  subject,  would  be  much  more  so. 
This  experience  of  security,  however,  should  admonish  us 
of  the  folly  and  wickedness  of  those  who  have  sometimes  taken 
upon  themselves  to  supersede  the  regular  course  of  law,  and 
by  rash  and  violent  acts  to  punish  supposed  disturbers  of  the 
peace  of  society.  This  can  admit  of  no  justification  or  pallia- 
tion whatever.  Burke,  I  think,  somewhere  remarked  some- 
thing to  this  effect, — that  when  society  is  in  the  last  stage  of 
depravih  — when  all  parties  are  alike  corrupt,  and  alike  wick- 
ed and  unjustifiable  in  their  measures  and  objects,  a  good  man 
may  content  himself  with  standing  neuter,  a  sad  and  dis- 
heartened spectator  of  the  conflict  between  the  rival  vices. 
But  are  we  in  this  wretched  condition  ?  It  is  fearful  to  see 
with  what  avidity  the  worst  and  most  dangerous  characters  of 
7* 

" 


78  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

society  seize  on  the  occasion  of  obtaining  the  countenance  of 
better  men,  for  the  purpose  of  throwing  off  the  restraints  of 
law.  It  is  always  these  who  are  most  zealous  and  forward  in 
constituting  themselves  the  protectors  of  the  public  peace. 
To  such  men — men  without  reputation,  or  principle,  or  stake 
in  society — disorder  is  the  natural  element.  In  that,  despe- 
rate fortunes  and  the  want  of  all  moral  principle  and  moral 
feeling  constitute  power.  .  They  are  eager  to  avenge  them- 
selves upon  society.  Anarchy  is  not  so  much  the  absence  of 
government,  as  the  government  of  the  worst — not  aristocracy, 
but  kakistocracy — a  state  of  things,  which  to  the  honor  of  our 
nature,  has  seldom  obtained  amongst  men,  and  which  per- 
haps was  only  fully  exemplified  during  the  worst  times  of  the 
French  revolution,  when  that  horrid  hell  burnt  with  its  most 
lurid  flame.  In  such  a  state  of  things,  to  be  accused  .is  to  be 
Condemned — to  protect  the  innocent  is  to  be  guilty ;  and  what 
perhaps  is  the  worst  effect,  ,even  men  of  better  nature,  to 
whom  their  own  deeds  are  abhorrent,  are  goaded  by  terror  to 
be  forward  and  emulous  in  deeds  of  guilt  and  violence.  The 
scenes  of  lawless  violence  which  have  been  acted  in  some  por- 
tions of  our  country,  rare  and  restricted  as  they  have  been, ' 
have  done  more  to  tarnish  its  reputation  than  a  thousand 
libels.  They  have  done  more  to  discredit,  and  if  anything 
could,  to  endanger,  not  only  our  domestic,  but  our  republican 
institutions,  than  the  abolitionists  themselves.  Men  .can 
never  be  permanently  and  effectually  disgraced  but  by  them- 
selves, and  rarely  endangered  but  by  their  own  injudicious  •. 
conduct,  giving  advantage  to  the  enemy.  Better,  far  better, 
would  it  be  to  encounter  the  dangers  with  which  we  are  sup- 
posed to  be  threatened,  than  to  employ  such  means  for  avert- 
ing them.  But  the  truth  is,  that  in  relation  to  this  matter, 
so  far  as  respects  actual  insurrection,  when  alarm  is  once 
excited,  danger  is  absolutely  at  an  end.  Society  can  then 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  V9 

employ  legitimate  and  more  effectual  measures  for  its  own 
protection.  The  very  commission  of  such  deeds  is  proof  that 
they  are  unnecessary.  Let  those  who  attempt  them,  then,  or 
make  any  demonstration  towards  them,  understand  that  they 
will  meet  only  the  discountenance  and  abhorrence  of  all 
good  men,  and  the  just  punishment  of  the  laws  they  have 
dared  to  outrage. 

It  has  commonly  been  supposed,  that  this  institution  will 
prove  a  source  of  weakness  in  relation  to  military  defence 
against  a  foreign  enemy.  I  will  venture  to  say  that  in  a 
slaveholding  community,  a  larger  military  force  may  be  main- 
tained permanently  in  the  field,  than  in  any  State  where  there 
are  not  slaves.  It  is  plain  that  almost  the  whole  of  the  able 
bodied  free  male  population,  making  half  of  the  entire  able 
bodied  male  population,  may  be  maintained  in  the  field,  and 
this  without  taking  in  any  material  degree  from  the  labor  and 
resources  of  the  country?  In  general,  the  labor  of  our  coun- 
try is  performed  by  slaves.  In  other  countries,  it  is  their 
laborers  that  form  the  material  of  their  armies.  What  pro- 
portion of  these  can  be  taken  away  without  fatally  crippling 
their  industry  and  resources  1  In  the  war  of  the  revolution, 
though  the  strength  of  our  State  was  wasted  and  paralyzed 
by  the  unfortunate  divisions  which  existed  among  ourselves, 
yet  it  may  be  said  with  general  truth,  that  every  citizen  was 
in  the  field,  and  acquired  much  of  the  qualities  of  the  soldier. 

It  js  true  that  this  advantage  will  be  attended  with  its  com- 
.  pensating  evils  and  disadvantages  ;  to  which  we  must  learn 
to  submit,  if  we  are  determined  on  the  maintenance  of  our 
institutions.  We  are,  as  yet,  hardly  at  all  aware,  how  little 
the  maxims  and  practices  of  modern  civilized  governments 
will  apply  to  us.  Standing  armies,  as  they  are  elsewhere 
constituted,  we  cannot  have  ;  for  we  have  not,  and  for  genera- 
tions cannot  have,  the  materials  out  of  which  they  are  to  be 


80  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

formed.  If  we  should  be  involved  in  serious  Tvars,  I  have  no 
doubt  but  that  some  sort  of  conscription,  requiring  the  ser- 
vice of  all  citizens  for  a  considerable  term,  will  be  necessary. 
Like  the  people  of  Athens,  it  will  be  necessary  that  every 
citizen  should  be  a  soldier,  and  qualified  to  discharge  efficient- 
ly the  duties  of  a  soldier.  It  may  seem  a  melancholy  consi- 
deration, that  an  army  so  made  up  should  be  opposed  to  the 
disciplined  mercenaries  of  foreign  nations.  But  we  must 
learn  to  know  our  true  situation.  But  may  we  not  hope, 
that  made  up  of  superior  materials,  of  men  having  home  and 
country  to  defend ;  inspired  by  higher  pride  of  character,  of 
greater  intelligence,  and  trained  by  an  effective,  though  hon- 
orable discipline,  such  an  army  will  be  more  than  a  match 
for  mercenaries.  The  efficiency  of  an  army  is  determined  by 
the  qualities  of  its  officers,  and  may  we  not  expect  to  have  .a 
greater  proportion  of  men. better  qualified  for  officers,  and 
possessing  the  true  spirit  of  military  command.  And  let  it 
be  recollected  that  if  there  were  otherwise  reason  to  appre- 
hend danger  from  insurrection,  there  will  be  the  greatest 
security  when  there  is'  the  largest  force  on  foot  within  the 
country.  Then  it  is  that  any  such  attempt  would  be  most 
instantly  and  effectually  crushed. 

And,  perhaps,  a  wise  foresight  should  induce  our  State  to 
provide,  that  it  should  have  within  itself  such  military  know- 
ledge and  skill  as  may  be  sufficient  to  organize,  discipline  and 
command  armies,  by  establishing  a  military  academy  or  school 
of  discipline.  The  school  of  the  militia  will  not  do  for  this. 
From  the  general  opinion  of  our  weakness,  if  our  country 
should  at  any  time  come  into  hostile  collision,  we  shall  be 
selected  for  the  point  of  attack ;  making  us,  according  to 
Mr.  Adams's  anticipation,  the  Flanders  of  the  United  States. 
Come  from  what  quarter  it  may,  the  storm  will  fall  upon  us. 
It  is  known  that  lately,  when  there  was  apprehension  of  hos- 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  81 

tility  with  France,  the  scheme  was  instantly  devised  of  invad- 
ing- the  Southern  States^and  organizing  insurrection.  In  a 
popular  English  periodical  work,  I  have  seen  the  plan  sug- 
gested by  an  officer  of  high  rank  and  reputation  in  the  Bri- 
tish army,  of  invading  the  Southern  States  at  various  points 
and  operating  by  the  same  means.  He  is  said  to  be  a  gal- 
lant officer,  and  certainly  had  no  conception  that  he  was 
devising  atrocious  crime,  as  alien  to  the  true  spirit  of  civilized 
warfare,  as  the  poisoning  of  streams  and  fountains.  But  the 
folly  of  such  schemes  is  no  less  evident  than  their  wicked- 
ness. Apart  from  the  consideration  of  that  which  experience 
has  most  fully  proved  to  be  true — that  in  general  their 
attachment  and  fidelity  to  their  masters  is  not  to  be  shaken, 
and  that  from  sympathy  with  the  feelings  of  those  by  whom 
they  are  surrounded,  and  from  whom  they  derive  their  im- 
pressions, they  contract  no  less  terror  and  aversion  towards  an 
invading  enemy ;  it  is  manifest  that  this  recourse  would  bo 
an  hundred  fold  more  available  to  us  than  to  such  an  enemy. 
They  are  already  in  our  possession,  and  we  might  at  will  arm 
and  organize  them  in  any  number  that  we  might  think  pro- 
per. The  Helots  were  a  regular  constituent  part  of  the  Spar- 
tan armies.  Thoroughly  acquainted  with  their  characters, 
and  accustomed  to  command  them,  we  might  use  any  strict- 
ness of  discipline  which  would  be  necessary  to  render  them 
effective,  and  from  their  habits  of  subordination  already  form- 
ed, this  would  be  a  task  of  less  difficulty.  Though  morally 
most  timid,  they  are  by  no  means  wanting  in  physical  strength 
of  nerve.  They  are  excitable  by  praise ;  and  directed  by 
those  in  whom  they  have  confidence,  would  rush  fearlessly 
and  unquestioning  upon  any  sort  of  danger.  With  white 
officers  and  accompanied  by  a  strong  white  cavalry,  there  are 
no  troops  in  the  world  from  whom  there  would  be  so  little 
reason  to  apprehend  insubordination  or  mutiny. 


f- 
82  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ox  SLAVERY. 

This,  I  -admit,  might  be  a  dangerous  resource,  and  one  not 
to  be  resorted  to  but  in  great  extremity.  But  I  am  supposing 
the  case  of  our  being  driven  to  extremity.  It  might  be  dan- 
gerous to  disband  such  an  army,  and  reduce  them  with  the 
habits  of  soldiers,  to  their  former  condition  of  laborers.  It 
might  be  found  necessary,  when  once  embodied,  to  keep  them 
so,  and  subject  to  military  discipline — a  permanent  standing 
army.  This  in  time  of  peace  would  be  expensive,  if  not  dan- 
gerous. Or  if  at  any  time  we  should  be  engaged  in  hostili- 
ties with  our  neighbors,  and  it  were  thought  advisable  to  send 
such  an  army  abroad  to  conquer  settlements  for  themselves, 
the  invaded  regions  might  have  occasion  to  think  that  the 
scourge  of  God  was  again  let  loose  to  afflict  the  earth. 

President  Dew  has  very  fully  shown  how  utterly  vain  are 
the  fears  of  those,  who,  though  there  may  be  no  danger  for 
the  present,  yet  apprehend  great  danger  for  the  future,  when 
the  number  of  slaves  shall  be  greatly  increased.  He  has 
shown  that  the  larger  and  more  condensed  society  becomes, 
the  easier  it  will  be  to  maintain  subordination,  supposing  the 
relative  number  of  the  different  classes  to  remain  the  same — 
or  even  if  there  should  be  a  very  disproportionate  increase  of 
the  enslaved  class.  Of  all  vain  things,  the  vainest  and  that 
in  which  man  most  shows  his  impotence  and  folly,  is  the 
taking  upon  himself  to  provide  for  a  very  distant  future — at 
all  events  by  any  material  sacrifice  of  the  present.  Though 
experience  has  shown  that  revolutions  and  political  move- 
ments— unless  when  they  have  been  conducted  with  the  most 
guarded  caution  and  moderation — have  generally  terminated 
in  results  just  the  opposite  of  what  was  expected  from  them, 
the  angry  ape  will  still  play  his  fantastic  tricks,  and  put  in 
motion  machinery,  the  action  of  which  he  no  more  compre- 
hends or  foresees  than  he  comprehends  the  mysteries  of  in- 
finity. The  insect  that  is  borne  upon  the  current  will  fancy 


HARPER'S  MEMOIB  ON  SLAVERY.  83 

that  he  directs  its  course.  Besides  the  fear  of  insurrection 
and  servile  war,  there  is  also  alarm  lest,  when  their  numbers 
shall  be  greatly  increased,  their  labor  will  become  utterly  un- 
profitable, so  that  it  will  be  equally  difficult  for  the  master  to 
retain  and  support  them,  or  to  get  rid  of  them.  But  at  what 
age  of  the  world  is  this  likely  to  happen  ?  At  present,  it 
may  be  said  that  almost  the  whole  of  the  Southern  portion  of 
this  continent  is  to  be  subdued  to  cultivation  ;  and  in  the 
order  of  providence,  this  is  the  task  allotted  to  them.  For 
this  purpose,  more  labor  will  be  required  for  generations  to 
come  than  they  Avill  be  able  to  supply.  When  that  task  is 
accomplished,  there  will  be  many  objects  to  which  their  labor 
may  be  directed. 

At  present  they  are  employed  in  accumulating  individual 
wealth,  and  this  in  one  way,  to  wit,  as  agricultural  laborers — 
and  this  is,  perhaps,  the  most  useful  purpose  to  which  their 
labor  can  be  applied.  The  effect  of  Slavery  has  not  been  to 
counteract  the  tendency  to  dispersion,  which  seems  epidemical 
among  our  countrymen,  invited  by  the  unbounded  extent  of 
fertile  and  unexhausted  soil,  though  it  counteracts  many  of 
the  evils  of  dispersion.  All  -the  customary  trades,  professions 
and  employments,  except  the  agricultural,  require  a  condensed 
population  for  their  profitable  exercise.  The  agriculturist  who 
can  command  no  labor  but  that  of  his  own  hands,  or  that  of 
his  family,  must  remain  comparatively  poor  and  rude.  He 
who  acquires  wealth  by  the  labor  of  slaves,  has  the  means  of 
improvement  for  himself  and  his  children.  He  may  have  a 
more  extended  intercourse,  and  consequently  means  of  infor- 
mation and  refinement,  and  may  seek  education  for  his  chil- 
dren where  it  may  be  found.  I  say,  what  is  obviously  true, 
that  he  has  the  means  of  obtaining  those  advantages ;  but  I 
say  nothing  to  palliate  or  excuse  the  conduct  of  him  who, 
having  such  means,  neglects  to  avail  himself  of  them. 


84  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ox  SLAVERY. 

I  believe  it  to  be  true,  that  in  consequence  of  our  disper- 
sion, though  individual  "wealth  is  acquired,  the  face  of  the 
country  is  less  adorned  and  improved  by  useful  and  ornamen- 
tal public  works,  than  in  other  societies  of  more  condensed 
population,  where  there  is  less  wealth.  But  this  is  an  effect 
of  that  which  constitutes  perhaps  our  most  conspicuous  ad- 
vantage. Where  population  is  condensed,  they  must  have 
the  evils  of  condensed  population,  and  among  these  is  the 
difficulty  of  finding  profitable  employment  for  capital.  He 
who  has  accumulated  even  an  inconsiderable  sum,  is  often 
puzzled  to  know  what  use  to  make  of  it.  Ingenuity  is  there- 
fore tasked  to  cast  about  for  every  enterprise  which  may  afford 
a  chance  of  profitable  investment.  Works  useful  and  orna- 
mental to  the  country,  are  thus  undertaken  and  accomplished, 
and  though  the  proprietors  may  fail  of  profit,  the  community 
no  less  receives  the  benefit.  Among  us,  there  is  no  such  dif- 
ficulty. A  safe  and  profitable  method  of  investment  is  offered 
to  every  one  who  has  capital  to  dispose  of,  which  is  further 
recommended  to  his  feelings  by  the  sense  of  independence 
and  the  comparative  leisure  which  the  employment  affords  to 
the  proprietor  engaged  in  it.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  few  of 
our  citizens  engage  in  the  pursuits  of  commerce.  Though 
these  may  be  more  profitable,  they  are  also  more  hazardous 
and  more  laborious. 

When  the  demand  for  agricultural  labor  shall  be  fully  sup- 
plied, then  of  course  the  labor  of  slaves  will  be  directed  to 
other  employments  and  enterprises.  Already  it  begins  to  be 
found,  that  in  some  instances  it  may  be  used  as  profitably  in 
works  of  public  improvement.  As  it  becomes  cheaper  and 
cheaper,  it  will  be  applied  to  more  various  purposes  and  com- 
bined in  larger  masses.  It  may  be  commanded  and  com- 
bined with  more  facility  than  any  other  sort  of  labor ;  and 
the  laborer,  kept  in  stricter  subordination,  will  be  less  danger- 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  85 

ous  to  the  security  of  society  than  in  any  other  country,  which, 
is  crowded  and  overstocked  with  a  class  of  what  are  called 
free  laborers.  Let  it  be  remembered  that  all  the  great  and 
enduring  monuments  of  human  art  and  industry — the  won- 
ders of  Egypt — the  everlasting  works  of  Rome — were  created 
by  the  labor  of  slaves.  There  will  come  a  stage  in  our  pro- 
gress when  we  shall  have  facilities  for  executing  works  as 
great  as  any  of  these — more  useful  than  the  pyramids — not 
less  magnificent  than  the  sea  of  Moeris.  What  the  end  of  all 
is  to  be  ;  what  mutations  lie  hid  in  the  womb  of  the  distant 
future  ;  to  what  convulsions  our  societies  may  be  exposed — 
whether  the  master,  finding  it  impossible  to  live. with  his 
slaves,  may  not  be  compelled  to  abandon  the  country  to 
them — of  all  this  it  were  presumptions  and  vain  to  speculate. 
I  have  hitherto,  as  I  proposed,  considered  it  as  a  naked, 
abstract  question  of  the  comparative  good  and  evil  of  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery.  Very  far  different  indeed  is  the  practical 
question  presented  to  us,  when  it  is  proposed  to  get  rid  of  an 
institution  which  has  interwoven  itself  with  every  fibre  of  the 
body  politic  ;  which  has  formed  the  habits  of  our  society,  and 
is  consecrated  by  the  usage  of  generations.  If  this  be  not  a 
vicious  prescription,  which  the  laws  of  God  forbid  to  ripen 
into  right,  it  has  a  just  claim  to  be  respected  by  all  tribunals 
of  man.  If  the  negroes  were  now  free,  and  it  were-  proposed 
to  enslave  them,  then  it  would  be  incumbent  on  those  who 
proposed  the  measure  to  show  clearly  that  their  liberty  was 
incompatible  with  the  public-  security.  When  it  is  proposed 
to  innovate  on  the  established  state  of  things,  the  burden  is 
on  those  who  propose  the  innovation,  to  show  that  advantage 
will  be  gained  from  it.  There  is  no  reform,  however  neces- 
sary, wholesome  or  moderate,  which  will  not  be  accompanied 
with  some  degree  of  inconvenience,  risk  or  suffering.  Those 
who  acquiesce  in  the  state  of  things  which  they  found  exist- 


86  HARPER  8   MEMOIR    ON    SLAVERY. 

ing,  can  hardly  be  thought  criminal.  But  most  deeply  cri- 
minal are  they  who  give  rise  to  the  enormous  evil  with  which 
great  revolutions  in  society  are  always  attended,  without  the 
fullest  assurance  of  the  greater  good  to  be  ultimately  obtained. 
But  if  it  can  be  made  to  appear,  even  probably,  that  no  good 
will  be  obtained,  but  that  the  results  will  be  evil  and  calami- 
tous as  the  process,  what  can  justify  such  innovations  ?  No 
human  being  can  be  so  mischievous — if  acting  consciously, 
none  can  be  so  wicked  as  those  who,  finding  evil  in  existing 
institutions,  rush  blindly  upon  change,  unforeseeing  and  reck- 
less of  consequences,  and  leaving  it  to  chance  or  fate  to  deter- 
mine whether  the  end  shall  be  improvement,  or  greater  and 
more  intolerable  evil.  Certainly  the  instincts  of  nature  prompt 
to  resist  intolerable  oppression.  For  this  resistance  no  rule 
can  be  prescribed,  but  it  must  be  left  to  the  instincts  of  nature. 
To  justify  it,  however,  the  insurrectionists  should  at  least  have 
a  reasonable  probability  of  success,  and  be  assured  that  their 
condition  will  be  improved  by  success.  But  most  extraordi- 
nary is  it,  when  those  who  complain  and  clamor  are  not  those 
•who  are  supposed  to  feel  the  oppression,  but  persons  at  a  dis- 
tance from  them,  and  who  can  hardly  at  all  appreciate  the 
good  or  the  evil  of  their  situation.  It  is  the  unalterable  con- 
dition of  humanity,  that  men  must  achieve  civil  liberty  for 
themselves.  The  assistance  of  allies  has  sometimes  enabled 
nations  to  repel  the  attacks  of  foreign  power,  never  to  con- 
quer liberty  as  against  their  own  internal  government. 

In  one  thing  I  concur  with  the  abolitionists  ;  that  if  eman- 
cipation is  to  be  brought  about,  it  is  better  that  it  should  be 
immediate  and  total.  But  let  us  suppose  it  to  be  brought 
about  in  any  manner,  and  then  enquire  what  would  be  the 
effects. 

The  first  and  most  obvious  effect,  would  be  to  put  an  end 
to  the  cultivation  of  our  great  Southern  staple.  And  this 


, 

HARPER  S    MEMOIR    ON    SLAVERY.  87 

would  be  equally  the  result,  if  we  suppose  the  emancipated 
negroes  to  bo  in  no  way  distinguished  from  the  free  laborers 
of  other  countries,  and  that  their  labor  would  be  equally  effec- 
tive. In  that  case,  they  would  soon  cease  to  be  laborers  for 
hire,  but  would  scatter  themselves  over  our  unbounded  terri- 
tory, to  become  independent  land  owners  themselves.  The 
cultivation  of  the  soil  on  an  extensive  scale,  can  only  be  car- 
ried on  where  there  are  slaves,  or  in  countries  superabounding 
with  free  labor.  ^No  such  operations  are  carried  on  in  any  por- 
tions of  our  own  country  where  there  are  not  slaves.  Such  are 
carried  on  in  England,  where  there  is  an  overflowing  popula- 
tion and  intense  competition  for  employment.  And  our  insti- 
tutions seem  suited  to  the  exigencies  of  our  respective  situa- 
tions. There,  a  much  greater  number  of  laborers  is  required 
at  one  season  of  the  year  than  at  another,  and  the  farmer 
may  enlarge  or  diminish  the  quantity  of  labor  he  employs,  as 
circumstances  may  require.  Here,  about  the  same  quantity 
of  labor  is  required  at  every  season,  and  the  planter  suffers  no 
inconvenience  from  retaining  his  laborers  throughout  the  year 
Imagine  an  extensive  rice  or  cotton  plantation  cultivated  by 
free  laborers,  -who  might  perhaps  strike  for  an  increase  of 
wages,  at  a  season  when  the  negldct  of  a  few  days  would 
insure  the  destruction  of  the  whole  crop.  Even  if  it  were 
possible  to  procure  laborers  at  all,  what  planter  would  venture 
to  carry  on  his  operations  under  such  circumstances  ?  I  need 
hardly  say  that  these  staples  cannot  be  produced  to  any 
extent  where  the  proprietor  of  the  soil  cultivates  it  with  his 
own  hands.  He  can  do  little  more  than  produce  the  neces- 
sary food  for  himself  and  his  family. 

And  what  would  be  the  effect  of  putting  an  end  to  the  cul- 
tivation of  these  staples,  and  thus  annihilating,  at  a  blow,  two- 
thirds  or  three-fourths  of  our-  foreign  commerce  ?  Can  any 
sane  mind  contemplate  such  -a  result  without  terror  ?  I  speak 


"  88  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

not  of  the  utter  poverty  and  misery  to  which  we  ourselves 
would  be  reduced,  and  the  desolation  which  would  overspread 
our  own  portion  of  the  country.  Our  Slavery  has  not  only 
given  existence  to  millions  of  slaves  within  our  own  territo- 
ries,'it  has  given  the  means  of  subsistence,  and  therefore  ex- 
istence, to  millions  of  freemen  in  our  confederates  States; 
enabling  them  to  send  forth  their  swarms  to  overspread  the 
plains  and  forests  of  the  West,  and  appear  as  the  harbingers 
of  civilization.  The  products  of  the  industry  of  those  States 
are  in  general  similar  to  those  of  the  civilized  world,  and  are 
little  demanded  in  their  markets.  By  exchanging  them  for 
ours,  which  are  every  where  sought  for,  the  people  of  these 
States  are  enabled  to  acquire  all  the  products  of  art  and  indus- 
try, all  that  contributes  to  convenience  or  luxury,  or  gratifies 
the  taste  or  the  intellect,  which  the  rest  of  the  world  can  sup- 
ply. Not  only  on  our  own  continent,  but  on  the  other,  it  has 
given  existence  to  hundreds  of  thousands,  and  the  means  of 
comfortable  subsistence  to  millions.  A  distinguished  citizen 
of  our  own  State,  than  whom  none  can  be  better  qualified  to 
form  an  opinion,  has  lately  stated  that  our  great  staple,  cotton, 
has  contributed  more  than  any  thing  else  of  later  times  to  the 
progress  of  civilization.  By  enabling  the  poor  to  obtain  cheap 
and  becoming  clothing,  it  has  inspired  a  taste  for  comfort,  the 
first  stimulus  to  civilization.  Does  not  self-defence,  then, 
demand  of  us  steadily  to  resist  the  abrogation  of  that  which 
is  productive  of  so  much  good  ?  It  is  more  than  self-defence. 
It  it  to  defend  millions  of  human  beings,  who  are  far  removed 
from  us,  from  the  intensest  suffering,  if  not  from  "being  struck 
out  of  existence.  It  is  the  defence  of  human  civilization. 

But  this  is  but  a  small  part  of  the  evil  which  would  be  oc- 

1 

casioned.  After  President  Dew,  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  a 
single  word  on  the  practicability  of  colonizing  our  slaves.  The 
two  races,  so  widely  separated  from  each  other  by  the  impress 


, 

HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  89 

of  nature,  must  remain  together  in  the  same  country.  Wheth- 
er it  be  accounted  the  result  of  prejudice  or  reason,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  two  races  will  not  be  blended  together  so  as  to 
form  a  homogenous  population.  To  one  who  knows  anything 
of  the  nature  of  man  and  human  society,  it  would  be  unneces- 
sary to  argue  that  this  state  of  things  cannot  continue  ;  but 
that  one  race  must  be  driven  out  by  the  other,  or  extermina- 
ted, or  again  enslaved.  I  have  argued  on  the  supposition 
that  the  emancipated  negroes  would  be  as  efficient  as  other 
free  laborers.  But  whatever  theorists,  who  know  nothing  of 
the  matter,  may  think  proper  to  assume,  we  well  know  that 
this  would  not  be  so.  We  know  that  nothing  but  the  coer- 
cion of  Slavery  can  overcome  their  propensity  to  indolence, 
and  that  not  one  in  ten  would  be  an 'efficient  laborer.  Even 
if  this  disposition  were  not  grounded  in  their  nature,  it  would 
be  a  result  of  their  position.  I  have  somewhere  seen  it  ob- 
served, that  to  be  degraded  by  opinion,  is  a  thousand  fold 
worse,  so  far  as  the  feelings  of  the  individuals  are  concerned, 
than  to  be  degraded  by  the  laws.  They  would  be  thus  de- 
graded, and  this  feeling  is  incompatible  with  habits  of  order 
and  industry.  Half  our  population  would  at  once  be  paupers. 
Let  an  inhabitant  of  New-York  or  Philadelphia  conceive  of 
the  situation  of  their  respective  States,  if  one-half  of  their  popu- 
tion  consisted  of  free  negroes.  The  tie  which  now  connects 
them,  being  broken,  the  different  races  would  be  estranged 
from  each  other,  and  hostility  would  grow  up  between  them. 
Having  the  command  of  their  own  time  and  actions,  they 
could  more  effectually  combine  insurrection,  and  provide  the 
means  of  rendering  it  formidable.  Released  from  the  vigilant 
superintendence  which  now  restrains  them,  they  would  infalli- 
bly be  led  from  petty  to  greater  crimes,  until  all  life  and  pro- 
perty would  be  rendered  insecure.  Aggression  would  beget 
retaliation,  until  open  war — and  that  a  war  of  extermination 
8* 


90  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

— were  established.  From  the  still  remaining  superiority  of 
the  white  race,  it  is  probable  that  they  would  be  the  victors, 
and  if  they  did  not  exterminate,  they  must  again  reduce  the 
others  to  Slavery — when  they  could  be  no  longer  fit  to  be 
either  slaves  or  freemen.  It  is  not  only  in  self-defence,  in  de- 
fence of  our  country  and  of  all  that  is  dear  to  us,  but  in  de- 
fence of  the  slaves  themselves,  that  we  refuse  to  emancipate 
them. 

If  we  suppose  them  to  have  political  privileges,  and  to  be 
admitted  to  the  elective  franchise,  still  worse  results  may  be 
expected.     It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  anything  to  what 
has  been  said  by  Mr.  Paulding  on  this  subject,  who  has  treat- 
ed it  fully.     It  is  already  known,  that  if  there  be  a  class  un- 
favorably distinguished 'by  any  peculiarity  from  the  rest  of 
society,  this  distinction  forms  a  tie  which  binds  them  to  act  in 
concert,  and  they  exercise  more  than  their  due  share  of  politi- 
cal power  and  influence — and  still  more,  as  they  are  of  inferior 
character  and  looser  moral  principle.     Such  a  class  form  the 
very  material  for  demagogues  to  work  with.     Other  parties 
court  them,  and  concede  to  them.     So  it  would  be  with  the 
free  blacks  in  the  case  supposed.     They  would  be  used  by 
unprincipled  politicians,  of  irregular  ambition,  for  the  advance- 
ment of  their  schemes,  until  they  should  give  them  political 
power  and  importance  beyond  even  their  own  intentions. 
They  would  be  courted  by  excited  parties  in  their  contests 
with  each  other.     At  some  time,  they  may  perhaps  attain 
political  ascendancy,  and  this  is  more   probable,  as  we  may 
suppose  that  there  will  have  been  a  great  emigration  of  whites 
from  the  country.     Imagine  the  government  of  such  legisla- 
tors.    Imagine  then  the  sort  of  laws  that  will  be  passed,  to 
confound  the  invidious  distinction  which  has  been  so  long 
assumed  over  them,  and,  if  possible,  to  obliterate  the  very 
memory  of  it.    These  will  be  resisted.     The  blacks  will  be 


. 

HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  91 

tempted  to  avenge  themselves  by  oppression  and  proscription 
of  the  white  race,  for  their  long  superiority.  Thus  matters 
will  go  on,  until  universal  anarchy,  or  kakistocracy,  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  worst,  is  fully  established.  I  am  persuaded 
that  if  the  spirit  of  evil  should  devise  to  send  abroad  upon 
the  earth  all  possible  misery,  discord,  horror,  and  atrocity,  he 
could  contrive  no  scheme  so  effectual  as  the  emancipation  of 
negro  slaves  within  our  country. 

The  most  feasible  scheme  of  emancipation,  and  that  which 
I  verily  believe  would  involve  the  least  danger  and  sacrifice, 
would  be  that  the  entire  white  population  should  emigrate, 
and  abandon  the  country  to  their  slaves.     Here  would  be 
triumph  to  philanthropy.    This  wide  and  fertile  region  would 
be  again  restored  to   ancient  barbarism — to  the  worst  of  all 
barbarism — barbarism  corrupted  and  depraved  by  intercourse 
with  civilization.  And  this  is  the  consummation  to  be  wished, 
upon  a  speculation,  that  in  some  distant  future  age,  they  may 
become  so  enlightened  and  improved,  as  to  be  capable  of  sus- 
taining a  position  among  the  civilized  races  of  the  "earth.    But 
I  believe  moralists  allow  men  to  defend  their  homes  and  their 
country,  even^at  the  expense  of  the  lives  and  liberties  of  others. 
Will  any  philanthropist  say  that  the  evils,  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  would  be  brought  about  only  by  the  obduracy,  preju- 
dices, and  overweening  self-estimation  of  the  whites  in  refu- 
sing to  blend  the  races  by  marriage,  and  so  create  an  homoge- 
nous population  ?     But  what,  if  it  be  not  prejudice,  but  truth, 
and  nature,  and  right  reason,  and  just  moral  feeling  ?     As  I 
have  before  said,  throughout  the  whole  of  nature,  like  attracts 
like,  and  that  which  is  unlike  repels.     What  is  it  that  makes 
PO  unspeakably  loathsome,  crimes  not  to  be  named,  and  hard- 
ly alluded  to  ?     Even  among  the  nations  of  Europe,  so  nearly 
homogenous,  there  are  some  peculiarities  of  form  and  feature, 
mind  and  character,  which  may  be  generally  distinguished  by 


, 


92  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVER- 

those  accustomed  to  observe  them.  Though  the  exceptions 
are  numerous,  I  will  venture  to  say  that  not  in  one  instance  in  a 
hundred,  is  the  man  of  sound  and  unsophisticated  tastes  and 
propensities  so  likely  to  be  attracted  by  the  female  of  a  for- 
eign stock,  as  by  one  of  his  own,  who  is  more  nearly  conform- 
ed  to  himself.  Shakspeare  spoke  the  language  of  nature, 
•when  he  made  the  senate  and  people  of  Venice  attribute  to 
the  effect  of  witchcraft,  Desdemona's  passion  for  Othello — 
though,  as  Coleridge  has  said,  we  are  to  conceive  of  him  not 
as  a  negro,  but  as  a  high  bred  Moorish  chief. 

If  the  negro  race,  as  I  have  contended,  be  inferior  to.  our 
own  in  mind  and  character,  marked  by  inferiority  of  form  and 
features,  then  ours  would  suffer  deterioration  from  such  inter- 
mixture. What  would  be  thought  of  the  moral  conduct  of 
the  parent  who  should  voluntarily  transmit  disease,  or  fatuity, 
or  deformity  to  his  offspring  ?  If  man  be  the  most  perfect 
work  of  the  Creator,  and  the  civilized  European  man  the  most 
perfect  variety  of  the  human  race,  is  he  not  criminal  who 
would  desecrate  and  deface  God's  fairest  work ;  estranging  it 
further  from  the  image  of  himself,  and  conforming  it  more 

^  O  f  O 

nearly  to  that  of  the  brute  ?  I  have  heard  it  said,  as  if  it  af- 
forded an  argument,  that  the  African  is  as  well  satisfied,  of 
the  superiority  of  his  own  complexion,  form,  and  features,  as 
we  can  be  of  ours.  If  this  were  true,  as  it  is  not,  would  any 
one  be  so  recreant  to  his  own  civilization,  as  to  say  that  his 
opinion  ought  to  .weigh  against  ours — that  there  is  no  univer- 
sal standard  of  truth,  and  grace,  and  beauty — that  the  Hot- 
tentot Venus  may  perchance  possess  as  great  perfection  of 
form  as  the  Medicean  ?  It  is  true,  the  licentious  passions  of 
men  overcome  the  natural  repugnance,  and  find  transient 
gratification  in  intercourse  with  females  of  the  other  race.  But 
this  is  a  very  different  thing  from  making  her  the  associate  of 
life,  the  companion  of  the  bosom  and  the  hearth.  Him  who 


Hi 


IARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  03 

. 

would  contemplate  such  an  alliance  for  himself,  or  regard  it 

•with  patience,  when  proposed  for  a  son,  or  daughter,  or  sister, 
we  should  esteem  a  degraded  wretch — with  justice,  certainly, 
if  he  were  found  among  ourselves — and  the  estimate  would 
not  be  very  different  if  he  were  found  in  Europe.  It  is  not 
only  in  defence  of  ourselves,  of  our  country,  and  of  our  own 
generation,  that  we  refuse  to  emancipate  our  slaves,  but  to  de- 
fend our  posterity  and  race  from  degeneracy  and  degradation. 

Are  we  not  justified  then  in  regarding  as  criminals,  the  fa- 
natical agitators  whose  efforts  are  intended  to  bring  about  the 
evils  I  have  described  ?  It  is  sometimes  said  that  their  zeal  is 
generous  and  disinterested,  and  that  their  motives  may  be 
praised,  though  their  conduct  be  condemned.  But  I -have 
little  faith  in  the  good  motives  of  those  who  pursue  bad  ends. 
It  is  not  for  us  to  scrutinize  the  hearts  of  men,  and  we  can 
only  judge  of  them  by  the  tendency  of  their  actions.  There 
is  much  truth  in  what  was  said  by  Coleridge.  "  I  have  never 
known  a  trader  in  philanthropy  who  was  not  wrong  in  heart 
somehow  or  other.  Individuals  so  distinguished,  are  usually 
unhappy  in  their  family  relations — men  not  benevolent  or  be- 
neficent to  individuals,  but  almost  hostile  to  them,  yet  lavish- 
ing money  and  labor  and  time  on  the  race — the  abstract  no- 
tion." The  prurient  love  of  notoriety  actuates  some.  There 
is  much  luxury  in  sentiment,  especially  if  it  can  be  indulged 
at  the  expense  of  others^  and  if  there  be  added  some  share  of 
envy  or  malignity,  the  temptation  to  indulgence  is  almost 
irresistible.  But  certainly  they  may  be  justly  regarded  as 
criminal,  who  obstinately  shut  their  eyes  and  close  their  ears 
to  all  instruction  with  respect  to  the  true  nature  of  their  ac- 
tions. 

It  must  be  manifest  to  every  man  of  sane  mind  that  it  is 
impossible  for  them  to  achieve  ultimate  success  ;  even  if  every 
individual  in  our  country,  out  of  the  limits  of  the  slaveholding 


94  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

States,  were  united  in  their  purposes.  They  cannot  have  even 
the  miserable  triumph  of  St.  Domingo — of  advancing  through 
scenes  of  atrocity,  blood  and  massacre,  to  the  restoration  of 
barbarism.  They  may  agitate  "and  perplex  the  world  for  a 
time.  They  may  ex-cite  to  desperate  attempts  and  particular 
acts  of  cruelty  and  horror >  but  these  will  always  be  suppressed 
or  avenged  at  the  expense  of  the  objects  of  their  truculent 
philanthropy.  But  short  of  this,  they  can  hardly  be  aware  of 
the  extent  of  the  mischief  they  perpetrate.  As  I  have  said, 
tlieir  opinions,  by  means  to  us  inscrutible,  do  very  generally 
reach  our  slave  population.  What  human  being,  if  unfavora- 
bly distinguished  by  outward  circumstances,  is  not  ready  to 
believe  when  he  is  told  that  he  is  the  victim  of  injustice  ?  Is 
it  not  cruelty  to  make  men  restless  and  dissatisfied  in  their 
condition,  when  no  effort  of  theirs  can  alter  it  ?  The  greatest 
injury  is  done  to  their  characters,  as  well  as  to  their  happi- 
ness. Even  if  no  such  feelings  or  designs  should  be  enter- 
tained or  conceived  by  the  slave,  they  will  be  attributed  to 
him  by  the  master,  and  all  his  conduct  scanned  with  a  severe 
and  jealous  scrutiny.  Thus  distrust  and  aversion  are  estab- 
lished, where,  but  for  mischievous  interference,  there  would 
be  confidence  and  good  will,  and  a  sterner  control  is  exercised 
over  the  slave  who  thus  becomes  the  victim  of  his  cruel  advo- 
cates. 

An  effect  is  sometimes  produced  on  the  minds  of  slave- 
holders, by  the  publications  of  the  self-styled  philanthropists, 
and  their  judgments  staggered  and  consciences  alarmed.  It 
is  natural  that  the  oppressed  should  hate  the  oppressor.  It  is 
still  more  natural  that  the  oppressor  should  hate  his  victim. 
Convince  the  master  that  he  is  doing  injustice  to  his  slave, 
and  he  at  once  begins  to  regard  him  with  distrust  and  ma- 
lignity.- It  is  a  part  of  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind, 
that  when  circumstances  of  necessity  or  temptation  induce 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.     .  95 

'  4MB 

men  to  continue  in  the  practice  of  what  they  believe  to  be 
wrong,  they  become  desperate  and  reckless  of  the  degree  of 
wrong.  I  have  formerly  heard  of  a  master  who  accounted 
for  his  practising  much  severity  upon  his  slaves,  and  exacting 
from  them  an  unusual  degree  of  labor,  by  saying  that  the 
thing  (Slavery)  was  altogether  wrong,  and  therefore  it  was 
well  to  make  the  greates^ossible  advantage  out  of  it.  This 
agitation  occasions  some  slaveholders  to  hang  more  loosely 
on  their  country.  Regarding  the  institution  as  of  questiona- 
ble character,  condemned  by  the  general  opinion  of  the  world, 
and  one  which,  must  shortly  come  to  an  end,  they  hold  them- 
selves in  readiness  to  make  their  escape  from  the  evil  which 
they  anticipate.  Some  sell  their  slaves  to  new  masters  (al- 
ways,a  misfortune  to  the  slave)  and  remove  themselves  to 
other  societies,  of  manners  and  habits  uncongenial  to  their 
own.  And  though  we  may  suppose  that  it  is  only  the  weak 
and  the  timid  who  are  liable  to  be  thus  affected,  still  it  is 
no  less  an  injury  and  public  misfortune.  Society  is  kept  in 
an  unquiet  and  restless  state,  and  every  sort  of  improvement 
is  retarded. 

Some  projectors  suggest  the  education  of  slaves,  with  a 
view  to  prepare  them  for  freedom — as  if  there  were  any 
method  -of  a  man's  being  educated  to  freedom,  but  by  him- 
self. The  truth  is,  however,  ,that  supposing  that  they  are 
shortly  to  be  emancipated,  and  that  they  have  the  capacities 
of  any  other  race,  they  are  undergoing  the  very  best  educa- 
tion which  it  is  possible  to  give.  They  are  in  the  course  of 
being  taught  habits  of  regular  and  patient  industry,  and  this 
is  the  first  lesson  which  is  required..  I  suppose  that  their 
most  zealous  advocates  would  not  desire  that  they  should  be 
placed  in  the  high  places  of  society  immediately  upon  their 
emancipation,  but  that  they  should  begin  their  course  of  freedom 
as  laborers,  and  raise  themselves  afterwards  as  their  capacities 


, 

96  HARPERS    MEMOIR   ON    SLAVERY. 

and  characters  might  enable  them.  But  how  little  would 
•what  are  commonly  called  the  rudiments  of  education,  add  to 
their  qualifications  as  laborers  ?  But  for  the  agitation  which 
exists,  however,  their  education  would  be  carried  further  than 
this.  There  is  a  constant  tendency  in  our  society  to  extend 
the  sphere  of  their  employments,  and  consequently  to  give 
them  the  information  which  is  i^Rssary  to  the  discharge  of 
those  employments.  And  this,  for  the  most  obvious  reason, 
it  promotes  the  master's  interest.  How  much  would  it  add 
to  the  value  of  a  slave,  that  he  should  be  capable  of  being 
employed  as  a  clerk,  or  be  able  to  make  calculations  as  a  me- 
chanic ?  In  consequence,  however,  of  the  fanatical  spirit 
which  has  been  excited,  it  has  been  thought  necessary  to  re- 
press this  tendency  by  legislation,  and  to  prevent  their  acquir- 
ing the  knowledge  of  which  they  might  make  a  4angei'ous 
use.  If  this  spirit  were  put  down,  and  we  restored  to  the 
consciousness  of  security,  this  would  be  no  longer  necessary, 
and  the  process  of  which  I  have  spoken  would  be  accelerated. 
Whenever  indications  of  superior  capacity  appeared  in  a  slave, 
it  would  be  cultivated ;  gradual  improvement  would  take 
place,  until  they  might  be  engaged  in  as  various  employments 
aa  they  were  among  the  ancients — perhaps  even  liberal  ones. 
Thus,  if  in  the  adorable  providence  of  God,  at  a  time  and  in 
a  manner  which  we  can  neither  foresee  nor  conjecture,  they 
are  to  be  rendered  capable  of  freedom  and  to  enjoy  it,  they 
would  be  prepared  for  it  in  the  best  and  most  effectual,  be- 
cause in  the  most  natural  and  gradual  manner.  But  fanati- 
cism hurries  to  its  effect  at  once.  I  have  heard  it  said,  God 
does  good,  but  it  is  by  imperceptible  degrees ;  the  devil  is 
permitted  to  do  evil,  and  he  does  it  in  a  hurry.  The  benefi- 
cent processes  of  nature  are  not  apparent  to  the  senses.  You 
cannot  see  the  plant  grow,  or  the  flower  expand.  The  vol- 
cano, the  earthquake,  and  the  hurricane,  do  their  work  of 


HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY.  97 

desolation  in  a  moment.  Such  would  be  the  desolation,  if 
the  schemes  of  fanatics  were  permitted  to  have  effect.  They 
do  all  that  in  them  lies  to  thwart  the  beneficent  purposes  of 
providence.  The  whole  tendency  of  their  efforts  is  to  aggra- 
vate present  suffering,  and  to  cut  off  the  chance  of  future  im- 
provement, and  in  all  their  bearings  and  results,  have  pro- 
duced, and  are  likely  to  produce,  nothing  but  "  pure,  unmixed, 
dephlegmated,  defecated  evil." 

If  Wilberforce  or  Clarkson  were  living,  and  it  were  enquired 
of  them  "  can  you  be  sure  that  you  have  promoted  the  happi- 
ness of  a  single  human  being  ?"  I  imagine  that,  if  they  con- 
sidered conscientiously,  they  would  find  it  difficult  to  answer 
in  the  affirmative.  If  it  were  asked  "  can  you  be  sure  that 
you  have  not  been  the  cause  of  suffering,  misery  and  death 
to  thousands," — when  we  recollect  that  they  probably  stimu- 
lated the  exertions  of  the  amis  des  noirs  in  France,  and  that 
through  the  efforts  of  these  the  horrors  of  St.  Domingo  were 
perpetrated — I  think  they  must  hesitate  long  to  return  a  de- 
cided negative.  It  might  seem  cruel,  if  we  could,  to  convince 
a  man  who  has  devoted  his  life  to  what  he  esteemed  a  good 
and  generous  purpose,  that  he  has  been  doing  only  evil — that 
he  has  been  worshipping  a  horrid  fiend,  in  the  place  of  the 
true  God.  But  fanaticism  is  in  no  danger  of  being  convinced. 
It  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  our  nature,  and  of  the  divine 
government,  how  utterly  disproportioned  to  each  other  are 
the  powers  of  doing  evil  and  of  doing  good.  The  poorest  and 
most  abject  instrument,  that  is  utterly  imbecile  for  any  pur- 
pose of  good,  seems  sometimes  endowed  with  almost  the 
powers  of  omnipotence  for  mischief.  A  mole  may  inundate 
a  province — a  spark  from  a  forge  may  conflagrate  a  city — a 
whisper  may  separate  friends — a  rumor  may  convulse  an  em- 
pire— but  when  we  would  do  benefit  to  our  race  or  country, 
the  purest  and  most  chastened  motives,  the  most  patient 
9 


98  HARPER'S  MEMOIR  ON  SLAVERY. 

thought  and  labor,  \vith  the  humblest  self-distrust,  are  hardly 
sufficient  to  assure  us  that  the  results  may  not  disappoint  our 
expectations,  and  that  we  may  not  do  evil  instead  of  good. 
But  are  \ve  therefore  to  refrain  from  efforts  to  benefit  our  race 
and  country  ?  By  no  means  :  but  these  motives,  this  labor 
and  self- distrust  are  the  only  conditions  upon  -which  we  are 
permitted  to  hope  for  success.  Very  different  indeed  is  the 
course  of  those  whose  precipitate  and  ignorant  zeal  would 
overturn  the  fundamental  institutions  of  society,  uproar  its 
peace  and  endanger  its  security,  in  pursuit  of  a  distant  and 
shadowy  good,  of  which  they  themselves  have  formed  no  defi- 
nite conception — whose  atrocious  philosophy  would  sacrifice 
a  generation — and  more  than  one  generation — for  any  hy- 
pothesis. 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 


SILVER  BLUFF,  (So.  CA.,)  JANUARY  28,  1845. 

SIR  :  I  received,  a  short  time  ago,  a  letter  from  the  Rev 
Willoughby  M.  Dickinson,  dated  at  your  residence,  "  Playford 
Hall,  near  Ipswich,  26th  November,  1844,"  in  which  was  en- 
closed a  copy  of  your  Circular  Letter,  addressed  to  professing 
Christians  in  our  Northern  States,  having  no  concern  with 
Slavery,  and  to  others  there.  I  presume  that  Mr.  Dickinson's 
letter  was  written  with  your  knowledge,  and  the  document 
enclosed  with  your  consent  and  approbation.  I  therefore  feel 
that  there  is  no  impropriety  in  my  addressing  my  reply  direct- 
ly to  yourself,  especially  as  there  is  nothing  in  Mr.  Dickinson's 
communication  requiring  serious  notice.  Having  abundant 
leisure,  it  will  be  a  recreation  to  devote  a  portion  of  it  to  an 
examination  and  free  discussion  of  the  question  of  Slavery  as 
it  exists  in  our  Southern  States  :  and  since  you  have  thrown 
down  the  gauntlet  to  me,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  take  it  up. 

Familiar  as  you  have  been  with  the  discussions  of  this  sub- 
ject in  all  its  aspects,  and  under  all  the  excitements  it  has 
occasioned  for  sixty  years  past,  I  may  not  be  able  to  present 
much  that  will  be  new  to  you.  Nor  ought  I  to  indulge  the 
hope  of  materially  affecting  the  opinions  you  have  so  long 
cherished,  and  so  zealously  promulgated.  Still,  time  and  ex- 
perience have  developed  facts,  constantly  furnishing  fresh  tests 


100  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

to  opinions  formed  sixty  years  since,  and  continually  placing 
this  great  question  in  points  of  view,  which,  could  scarcely 
occur  to  the  most  consummate  intellect  even  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago :  and  which  may  not  have  occurred  yet  to  those 
whose  previous  convictions,  prejudices,  and  habits  of  thought, 
have  thoroughly  and  permanently  biased  them  to  one  fixed 
way  of  looking  at  the  matter :  while  there  are  peculiarities  in 
the  operation  of  every  social  system,  and  special  local  as  well 
as  moral  causes  materially  affecting  it,  which  no  one,  placed 
at  the  distance  you  are  from  us,  can  fully  comprehend  or  pro- 
perly appreciate.  Besides,  it  may  be  possibly,  a  novelty  to 
you  to  encounter  one  who  conscientiously  believes  the  domes- 
tic Slavery  of  these  States  to  be  not  only  an  inexorable  neces- 
sity for  the  present,  but  a  moral  and  humane  institution,  pro- 
ductive of  the  greatest  political  and  social  advantages,  and 
•who  is  disposed,  as  I  am,  to  defend  it  on  these  grounds. 

I  do  not  propose,  however,  to  defend  the  African  slave 
trade.  That  is  no  longer  a  question.  Doubtless  great  evils 
arise  from  it  as  it  has  been,  and  is  now-conducted  :  unneces- 
sary wars  and  cruel  kidnapping  in  Africa  :  the  most  shocking 
barbarities  in  the  middle  passage  :  and  perhaps  a  less  humane 
system  of  Slavery  in  countries  continually  supplied  with  fresh 
laborers  at  a  cheap  rate.  The  evils  of  it,  however,  it  may  be 
fairly  presumed,  are  greatly  exaggerated.  And  if  I  might 
judge  of  the  truth  of  transactions  stated  as  occurring  in  this 
trade,  by  that  of  those  reported  as  transpiring  among  us,  I 
should  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  sto- 
ries in  circulation  are  unfounded,  and  most  of  the  remainder 
highly  colored. 

On  the  passage  of  the  Act  of  Parliament  prohibiting  this 
trade  to  British  subjects  rests,  what  you  esteem,  the  glory  of 
your  life.  It  required  twenty  years  of  arduous  agitation,  and 
the  intervening  extraordinary  political  events,  to  convince  your 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  101 

countrymen,  and  among  the  rest  your  pious  king,  of  the  ex- 
pediency of  the  measure  :  and  it  is  but  just  to  say,  that  no 
one  individual  rendered  more  essential  service  to  the  cause 
than  you  did.  In  reflecting  on  the  subject,  you  cannot  but  often 
ask  yourself :  What,  after  all,  has  been  accomplished ;  how 
much  human  suffering  has  been  averted ;  how  many  human 
beings  have  been  rescued  from  transatlantic  Slavery  ?  And 
on  the  answers  you  can  give  these  questions,  must  in  a  great 
measure,  I  presume,  depend  the  happiness  of  your  life.  In 
framing  them,  how  frequently  must  you  be  reminded  of  the 
remark  of  Mr.  Grosvenor,  in  one  of  the  early  debates  upon  the 
subject,  which  I  believe  you  have  yourself  recorded,  "  that  he 
had  twenty  objections  to  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  :  the 
first  was,  that  it  was  impossible — the  rest  he  need  not  give." 
Can  you  say  to  yourself,  or  to  the  world,  that  this  first  ob- 
jection of  Mr.  Grosvenor  has  been  yet  confuted  ?  It  was  esti- 
mated at  the  commencement  of  your  agitation  in  1787,  that 
forty-five  thousand  Africans  were  annually  transported  to 
America  and  the  West  Indies.  And  the  mortality  of  the 
middle  passage,  computed  by  some  at  five,  is  now  admitted 
not  to  have  exceeded  nine  per  cent.  Notwithstanding  your 
Act  of  Parliament,  the  previous  abolition  by  the  United  States, 
and  that  all  the  powers  in  the  world  have  subsequently  pro- 
hibited this  trade — some  of  the  greatest  of  them  declaring  it 
piracy,  and  covering  the  African  seas  with  armed  vessels  to 
prevent  it — Sir  Thomas  Fowel  Buxton,  a  coadjutor  of  yours, 
declared  in  1840,  that  the  number  of  Africans  now  annually 
sold  into  slavery  beyond  the  sea,  amounts,  at  the  very  least, 
to  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  souls ;  while  the  mortality 
of  the  middle  passage  has  increased,  in  consequence  of  the 
measures  taken  to  suppress  the  trade,  to  twenty-five  or  thirty 
per  cent.  And  of  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  slaves 
who  have  been  captured  and  liberated  by  British  men-of-war, 
9* 


102  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

since  the  passage  of  your  Act,  Judge  Jay,  an  American  aboli- 
tionist, asserts  that  one  hundred  thousand,  or  two-thirds,  have 
perished  between  their  capture  and  liberation.  Does  it  not 
really  seem  that  Mr.  Grosvenor  was  a  prophet  ?  That  though 
nearly  all  the  "impossibilities"  of  1787  have  vanished,  and 
become  as  familiar  facts  as  our  household  customs,  under  the 
magic  influence  of  steam,  cotton,  and  universal  peace,  yet  this 
wonderful  prophecy  still  stands,  defying  time  and  the  energy 
and  genius  of  mankind. '  Thousands  of  valuable  lives,  and  fifty 
millions  of  pounds  sterling,  ha(re  been  thrown  away  by  your 
government  in  fruitless  attempts  to  overturn  it.  I  hope  you 
have  not  lived  too  long  for  your  own  happiness,  though  you 
have  been  spared  to  see  that  in  spite  of  all  your  toils  and 
those  of  your  fellow-laborers,  and  the  accomplishment  of  all 
that  human  agency  could  do,  the  African  slave  trade  has  in- 
creased three-fold  under  your  own  eyes — more  rapidly,  per- 
haps, than  any  other  ancient  branch  of  commerce — and  that 
your  efforts  to  suppress  it  have  effected  nothing  more  than  a 
three-fold  increase  of  its  horrors.  There  is  a  God  who  rules 
this  world — all-powerful — far-seeing :  He  does  not  permit  his 
creatures  to  foil  his  designs.  It  is  he  who,  for  his  all-wise, 
though  to  us  often  inscrutable  purposes,  throws  "impossibili- 
ties "  in  the  way  of  our  fondest  hopes  and  most  strenuous 
exertions.  Can  you  doubt  this  ? 

Experience  having  settled  the  point,  that  this  trade  cannot 
be  abolished  by  the  use  of  force,  and  that  blockading  squadrons 
serve  only  to  make  it  more  profitable  and  more  cruel,  I  am 
surprised  that  the  attempt  is  persisted  in,  unless  it  serves  as  a 
cloak  to  other  purposes.  It  would  be  far  better  than  it  now 
is,  for  the  African,  if  the  trade  was  free  from  all  restrictions, 
and  left  to  the  mitigation  and  decay  which  time  and  competi- 
tion would  surely  bring  about.  If  kidnapping,  both  secretly 
and  by  war  made  for  the  purpose,  could  be  by  any  means 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  103 

prevented  in  Africa,  the  next  greatest  blessing  you  could  be- 
stow upon  that  country  would  be  to  transport  its  actual  slaves 
in  comfortable  vessels  across  the  Atlantic.  Though  they 
might  be  perpetual  bondsmen,  still  they  would  emerge  from 
darkness  into  light — from  barbarism  into  civilization — from 
idolatry  to  Christianity — in  short  from  death  to  life. 

But  let  us  leave  the  African  slave  trade,  which  has  so  sig- 
nally defeated  the  philanthropy  of  the  world,  and  turn  to 
American  Slavery,  to  which  you  -have  now  directed  your  at- 
tention, and  against  which  a  crusade  has  been  preached  as 
enthusiastic  and  ferocious  as  that  of  Peter  the  Hermit — des- 
tined, I  believe,  to  be  about  as  successful.  And  here  let  me 
say,  there  is  a  vast  'difference  between  the  two,  though  you 
may  not  acknowledge  it.  The  wisdom  of  ages  has  concurred 
in  the  justice  and  expediency  of  establishing  rights  by  pre- 
scriptive use,  however  tortious  in  their  origin  they  may  have 
been.  You  would  deem  a  man  insane,  whose  keen  sense  of 
equity  would  lead  him  to  denounce  your  right  to  the  lands 
you  hold,  and  which  perhaps  you  inherited  from  a  long  line 
of  ancestry,  because  your  title  was  derived  from  a  Saxon  or 
Norman  conqueror,  and  your  lands  were  originally  wrested 
by  violence  from  the  vanquished  Britons.  And  so  would  the 
New-England  abolitionist  regard  any  one  who  would  insist 
that  he  should  restore  his  farm  to  the  descendants  of  the 
slaughtered  red  men,  to  whom  God  had  as  clearly  given  it  as 
he  gave  life  and  freedom  to  the  kidnapped  African.  That 
time  does  not  consecrate  wrong,  is  a  fallacy  which  all  history 
exposes  ;  and  which  the  best  and  wisest  men  of  all  ages  and 
professions  of  religious  faith  have  practically  denied.  The 
means,  therefore,  whatever  they  may  have  been,  by  which  the 
African  race  now  in  this  country  have  been  reduced  to  Slave- 
ry, cannot  affect  us,  since  they  are  our  property,  as  your  land 
is  yours,  by  inheritance  or  purchase  and  prescriptive  right. 

• 


104  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

You  will  say  that  man  cannot  hold  property  in  man.  The 
answer  is,  that  he  can  and  actually  does  hold  property  in  his 
fellow  all  the  "world  over,  in  a  variety  of  forms,  and  has  always 
done  so.  I  will  show  presently  his  authority  for  doing  it. 

If  you  were  to  ask  me  whether  I  am  an  advocate  of  Slave- 
ry in  the  abstract,  I  should  probably  answer,  that  I  am  not, 
according  to  my  understanding  of  the  question.  I  do  not  like 
to  deal  in  abstractions.  It  seldom  leads  to  any  useful  ends. 
There  are  few  universal  truths.  I  do  not  now  remember  any 
single  moral  truth  universally  acknowledged.  We  have  no 
assurance  that  it  is  given  to  our  finite  understanding  to  com- 
prehend 'abstract  moral  truth.  Apart  from  revelation  and  the 
inspired  writings,  what  ideas  should  we  have  even  of  God, 
salvation  and  immortality  ?  Let  the  heathen  answer.  Justice 
itself  is  impalpable  as  an  abstraction,  and  abstract  liberty  the 
merest  phantasy  that  ever  amused  the  imagination.  This 
world  was  made  for  man,  and  man  for  the  world  as  it  is.  We 
ourselves,  our  relations  with  one  another  and  with  all  matter, 
are  real,  not  ideal.  I  might  say  that  I  am  no  more  in  favor 
of  Slavery  in  the  abstract,  than  I  am  of  poverty,  disease,  de- 
formity, idiocy,  or  any  other  inequality  in  the  condition  of  the 
human  family  ;  that  I  love  perfection,  and  think  I  should  en- 
joy a  millennium  such  as  God  has  promised.  But  what  would 
it  amount  to  ?  A  pledge  that  I  would  join  you  to  set  about 
eradicating  those  apparently  inevitable  evils  of  our  nature,  in 
equalizing  the  condition  of  all  mankind,  consummating  the 
perfection  of  our  race,  and  introducing  the  millennium  ?  By 
no  means.  To  effect  these  things,  belongs  exclusively  to  a 
higher  power.  And  it  would  be  well  for  us  to  leave  the  Al- 
mighty to  perfect  his  own  works  and  fulfil  his  own  covenants. 
Especially,  as  the  history  of  the  past  shows  how  entirely  futile 
all  human  efforts  have  proved,  when  made  for  the  purpose  of 
aiding  Him  in  carrying  out  even  his  revealed  designs,  and 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  -    105 

how  invariably  he  has  accomplished  them  by  unconscious  in- 
struments, and  in  the  face  of  human  expectation.  Nay  more, 
that  every  attempt  which  has  been  made  by  fallible  man  to 
extort  from  the  world  obedience  to  his  "abstract"  notions  of 
right  and  wrong,  has  been  invariably  attended  with  calamities 
dire,  and  extended  just  in  proportion  to  the  breadth  and  vigor 
of  the  movement.  On  Slavery  in  the  abstract,  then,  it  would 
not  be  amiss  to  have  as  little  as  possible  to  say.  Let  us  eon- 
template  it  as  it  is.  And  thus  contemplating  it,  the  first 
question  we  have  to  ask  ourselves  is,  whether  it  is  contrary  to 
the  will  of  God,  /as  revealed  to  us  in  his  Holy  Scriptures — 
the  only  certain  means  given  us  to  ascertain  his  will.  If  it 
is,  then  Slavery  is  a  sin.  And  I  admit  at  once  that  every 
man  is  bound  to  set  his  face  against  it,  and  to  emancipate  his 
slaves,  should  he  hold  any. 

Let  us  open  these  Holy  Scriptures.  In  the  twentieth  chap- 
ter of  Exodus,  seventeenth  verse,  I  find  the  following  words  : 
"  Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  house,  thou  shalt  not 
covet  thy  neighbor's  wife,  nor  his  man-servant,  nor  his  maid- 
servant, nor  his  ox,  nor  his  ass,  nor  anything  that  is  thy  neigh- 
bor's " — which  is  the  tenth  of  those  commandments  that  de- 
clare the  essential  principles  of  the  great  moral  law  delivered 
to  Moses  by  God  himself.  Now,  discarding  all  technical  and 
verbal  quibbling  as  wholly  unworthy  to  be  used  in  interpre- 
ting the  Word  of  God,  what  is  the  plain  meaning,  undoubted 
intent,  and  true  spirit  of  this  commandment  ?  Does  it  not 
emphatically  and  explicitly  forbid  you  to  disturb  your  neigh- 
bor in  the  enjoyment  of  his  property ;  and  more  especially  of 
that  which  is  here  specifically  mentioned  as  being  lawfully, 
and  by  this  commandment  made  sacredly  his  ?  Prominent 
in  the  catalogue  stands  his  "  man-servant  and  his  maid-ser- 
vant," who  are  thus  distinctly  consecrated  as  his  property,  and 
guaranteed  to  him  for  his  exclusive  benefit,  in  the  most  solemn 


106  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

manner.  You  attempt  to  avert  the  otherwise  irresistible  con- 
clusion, that  Slavery  was  thus  ordained  by  God,  by  declaring 
that  the  word  "  slave  "  is  not  used  here,  and  is  not  to  be  found 
in  the  Bible.  And  I  have  seen  many  learned  dissertations  on 
this  point  from  abolition  pens.  It  is  well,  known  that  both 
the  Hebrew  and  Greek  words  translated  "  servant "  in  the 
Scriptures,  mean  also,  and  most  usually,  "  slave."  The  use  of 
the  one  word,  instead  of  the  other,  was  a  mere  matter  of  taste 
•with  the  translators  of  the  Bible,  as  it  has  been  with  all  the 
commentators  and  religious  writers,  the  latter  of  whom  have, 
I  believe,  for  the  most  part,  adopted  the  term  "slave,"  or  used 
both  terms  indiscriminately.  If,  then,  these  Hebrew  and 
Greek  words  include  the  idea  of  both  systems  of  servitude,  the 
conditional  and  unconditional,  they  should,  as  the  major  in- 
cludes the  minor  proposition,  be  always  translated  "  slaves," 
unless  the  sense  of  the  whole  text  forbids  it.  The  real  ques- 
tion, then  is,  what  idea  is  intended  to  be  conveyed  by  the 
words  used  in  the  commandment  quoted  ?  And  it  is  clear  to 
my  mind,  that  as  no  limitation  is  affixed  to  them,  and  the 
express  intention  was  to  secure  to  mankind  the  peaceful  en- 
joyment of  every  species  of  property,  that  the  terms  "  men- 
servants  and  maid-servants "  include  all  classes  of  servants, 
and  establish  a  lawful,  exclusive,  and  indefeasible  interest 
equally  in  the  "Hebrew  brother  who  shall  go  out  in  the  sev- 
enth year,"  and  "  the  yearly  hired  servant,"  and  "  those  pur- 
chased from  the  heathen  round  about,"  who  were  to  be 
"bondmen  forever,"  as  the  property  of  their  fellow-man. 

You  cannot  deny  that  there  were  among  the  Hebrews 
"  bondmen  forever."  You  cannot  deny  that  God  especially 
authorized  his  chosen  people  to  purchase  "  bondmen  forever  " 
from  the  heathen,  as  recorded  in  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of 
Leviticus,  and  that  they  are  there  designated  by  the  very  He- 
brew word  used  in  the  tenth  commandment.  Nor  can  you 

I 


HAMMOND'S  IETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  107 

deny  that  a  "  BONDMAN  FOREVER  "  is  a  "  SLAVE  ;"  yet  you 
endeavor  to  hang  an  argument  of  immortal  consequence  upon 
the  wretched  subterfugej  that  the  precise  word  "  slave  "  is  not 
to  be  found  in  the  translation  of  the  Bible.  As  if  the  trans- 
lators were  canonical  expounders  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and 
their  words,  not  God's  meaning,  must  be  regarded  as  his 
revelation. 

It  is  vain  to  look  to  Christ  or  any  of  his  Apostles  to  justify 
such  blasphemous  perversions  of  the  word  of  God.  Although 
Slavery  in  its  most  revolting  form  was  everywhere  visible 
around  them,  no  visionary  notions  of  piety  or  philanthropy 
ever  tempted  them  to  gainsay  the  LAW,  even  to  mitigate  the 
cruel  severity  of  the  existing  system.  On  the  contrary,  re- 
garding Slavery  as  an  established,  as  well  as  inevitable  condi- 
tion of  human  society,  they  never  hinted  at  such  a  thing  as  its 
termination  on  earth,  any  more  than  that  "  the  poor  may 
cease  out  of  the  land,"  which  God  affirms  to  Moses  shall 
never  be  :  and  they  exhort  "  all  servants  under  the  yoke  "  to 
"  count  their  masters  as  worthy  of  all  honor :"  "  to  obey  them 
in  all  things  according  to  the  flesh ;  not  with  eye-service  as 
men-pleasers,  but  in  singleness  of  heart,  fearing  God ;"  "  not 
only  the  good  and  gentle,  but  also  the  froward  :"  "  for  what 
glory  is  it  if  when  ye  are  buffetted  for  your  faults  ye  shall 
take  it  patiently  ?  but  if  .when  ye  do  well  and  suffer  for  it  ye 
take  it  patiently,  this  is  acceptable  of  God."  St.  Paul  actual- 
ly apprehended  a  runaway  slave,  and  sent  him  to  his  master ! 
Instead  of  deriving  from  the  Gospel  any  sanction  for  the  work 
you  have  undertaken,  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  senti- 
ments and  conduct  more  strikingly  in  contrast,  than  those  of 
the  Apostles  and  the  abolitionists. 

It  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  suppose  that  Slavery  is  contra- 
ry to  the  will  of  God.  It  is  equally  absurd  to  say  that  Ameri- 
can Slavery  differs  in  form  or  principle  from  that  of  the  cho- 


108  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS -ON  SLAVERY. 

sen  people.  We  accept  the  Bible  terms  as  the  definition  of 
our  Slavery,  and  its  precepts  as  the  guide  of  our  conduct. 
We  desire  nothing  more.  Even  the  right  to  "  buffet,"  'which 
is  esteemed  so  shocking,  finds  its  express  license  in,the  gospel. 
1  Peter  ii.  20.  Nay,  what  is  more,  God  directs  fixe  Ilebrews 
to  "  bore  holes  in  the  ears  of  their  brothers  "  to  mark  them, 
when  under  certain  circumstances  they  become  perpetual 
slaves.  Exodus  xxi.  0. 

I  think,  then,  I  may  safely  conclude,  and  I  firmly  believe, 
that  American  Slavery  is  not  only  not.^A.  sin,  but  especially 
commanded  by  God  through  Moses,  and  approved  by  Christ 
through  his  apostles.  And  here  I  might  close  its  defence  ;  for 
what  God  ordains,  and  Christ  sanctifies,  should  surely  com- 
mand the  respect  and  toleration  of  man.  But  I  fear  there  has 
grown  up  in  our  time  a  transcendental  religion,  which  is  throw- 
ing even  transcendental  philosophy  into  the  shade— a  religion 
too  pure  and  elevated  for  the  Bible ;  which  seeks  to  erect 
among  men  a  higher  standard  of  morals  than  the  Almighty 
has  revealed,  or  our  Saviour  preached ;  and  which  is  probably 
destined  to  do  more  to  impede  the  extension  of  God's  king- 
dom on  earth  than  ail  the  infidels  who  have  ever  lived.  Error 
is  error.  It  is  as  dangerous  to  deviate  to  the  right  hand  as 
the  left.  And  when  men,  professing  to  be  holy  men,  and 
who  are  by  numbers  so  regarded,  declare  those  things  to  be 
sinful  which  our  Creator  has  expressly  authorized  and  institu- 
ted, they  do- more  to  destroy  his  authority  among  mankind 
than  the  most  wicked  can  effect,  by  proclaiming  that  to  be 
innocent  which  he  has  forbidden.  To  this  self-righteous  and 
self-exalted  class  belong  all  the  abolitionists  whose  writings  I 
have  read.  With  them  it  is  no  end  of  the  argument  to  prove 
your  propositions  by  the  text  of  the  Bible,  interpreted  accord- 
ing to  its  plain  and  palpable  meaning,  and  as  understood  by 
all  mankind  for  three  thousand  years  before  their  time.  They 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  109 

are  more  ingenious  at  construing  and  interpolating  to  accom- 
modate it  to  their  new-fangled  and  etherial  code  of  morals, 
than  ever  were  Voltaire  and  Hume  in  picking  it  to  pieces,  to 
free  the  world  from  -what  they  considered  a  delusion.  When 

* 

the  abolitionists  proclaim  "  man-stealing "  to  be  a  sin,  and 
show  me  that  it  is  so  written  down  by  God,  I  admit  them  to 
be  right,  and  shudder  at  the  idea  of  such  a  crime.  But  when 
I  show  them  that  to  hold  "  bondmen  forever  "  is  ordained  by 
God,  they  deny  the  Bible,  and  set  up  in  its  place  a  law  of  their 
own  making.  I  must  then  cease  to  reason  with  them  on  this 
branch  of  the  question.  Our  religion  differs  as  widely  as  our 
manners.  The  great  judge  in  our  day  of  final  account  must 
decide  between  us. 

Turning  from  the  consideration  of  slaveholding  in  its  rela- 
tions to  man  as  an  accountable  being,  let  us  examine  it  in  its 
influence  on  his  political  and  social  state.  Though,  being 
foreigners  to  us,  you  are  in  no  wise  entitled  to  interfere  with 
the  civil  institutions  of  this  country,  it  has  become  quite  com- 
mon for  your  countrymen  to  decry  Slavery  as  an  enormous 
political  evil  to  us,  and  even  to  declare  that  our  Northern. 
States  ought  to  withdraw  from  the  Confederacy  rather  than 
continue  to  be  contaminated  by  it.  The  American  abolition- 
ists appear  to  concur  fully  in  these  sentiments,  and  a  portion, 
at  least,  of  them  are  incessantly  threatening  to  dissolve  the 
Union.  Nor  should  I  be  at  all  surprised  if  they  succeed.  It 
would  not  be  difficult,  in  my  opinion,  to  conjecture  which 
region,  the  North  or  South,  would  suffer  most  by  such  an 
event.  For  one,  I  should  not  object,  by  any  .means,  to  cast 
my  lot  in  a  confederacy  of  States  whose  citizens  might  all  be 
slaveholders; 

I  endorse  without  reserve  the  much  abused  sentiment  of 
Governer  M'Duffie,  that  "  Slavery  is  the  corner-stone  of  our 
republican  edifice  ;"  while  I  repudiate,  as  ridiculously  absurd, 
10 


110  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

that  much  lauded  but  nowhere  accredited  dogma  of  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson, that  "  all  men  are  born  equal."  No  society  has  ever 
yet  existed,  and  I  have  already  incidentally  quoted  the  high- 
est authority  to  show  that  none  ever  will  exist,  without  a 
natural  variety  of  classes.  The  most  marked  of  these  must, 
in  a  country  like  ours,  be  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  educated 
and  the  ignorant.  It  will  scarcely  be  disputed  that  the  very 
poor  have  less  leisure  to  prepare  themselves  for  the  proper 
discharge  of  public  duties  than  the  rich  ;  and  that  the  igno- 
rant are  wholly  unfit  for  them  at  all.  In  all  countries  save 
ours,  these  two  classes,  or  the  poor  rather,  who  are  presumed 
to  be  necessarily  ignorant,  are  by  law  expressly  excluded  from 
all  participation  in  the  management  of  public  affairs.  In  a 
Eepublican  Government  this  cannot  be  done.  Universal  suf- 
frage, though  not  essential  in  theory,  seems  to  be  in  fact  a 
necessary  appendage  to  a  republican  system.  Where  univer- 
sal suffrage  obtains,  it  is  obvious  that  the  government  is  in 
the  hands  of  a  numerical  majority ;  and  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  say  that  in  every  part  of  the  world  more  than  half  the  peo- 
ple are  ignorant  and  poor.  Though  no  one  can  look  upon 
poverty  as  a  crime,  and  we  do  not  here  generally  regard  it  as 
any  objection  to  a  man  in  his  individual  capacity,  still  it  must 
be  admitted  that  it  is  a  wretched  and  insecure  government 
which  is  administered  by  its  most  ignorant  citizens,  and  those 
who  have  the  least  at  stake  under  it.  Though  intelligence 
and  wealth  have  great  influence  here,  as  everywhere,  in  keep- 
ing in  check  reckless  and  unenlightened  numbers,  yet  it  is 
evident  to  close  observers,  if  not  to  all,  that  these  are  rapidly 
usurping  all  power  in  the  non-sjaveholding  States,  and  threat- 
en a  fearful  crisis  in  republican  institutions  there  at  no  remote 
period.  In  the  slaveholding  States,  however,  nearly  oBe-half 
of  the  whole  population,  and  those  the  poorest  and  most  igno- 
rant, have  no  political  influence  whatever,  because  they  are 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVEHY.  167 

subject  of  Slavery,  that  is  worthy  of  notice  in  your  letter,  per- 
mit me  to  remark  on  its  tone  and  style,  and  very  extraordi- 
nary bearing  upon  other  institutions  of  this  country.  You" 
commence  by  addressing  certain  classes  of  our  people,  as  be- 
longing to  "  a  nation  whose  character  is  now  so  low  in  the 
estimation  of  the  civilized  world  ;"  and  throughout  you  main- 
tain this  tone.  Did  the  Americans  who  were  "  under  your 
roof  last  summer  "  inform  you  that  such  language  would  be 
gratifying  to  their  fellow-citizens  "having  no  practical  con- 
cern with  slaveholding  2"  Or  do  the  infamous  libels  on  Ame- 
rica, which  you  read  in  our  abolition  papers,  induce  you  to 
believe  that  all  that  class  of  people  are,  like  the  abolitionists 
themselves,  totally  destitute  of  patriotism  or  pride  of  country  ? 
Let  me  tell  you  that  you  are  grossly  deceived.  And  although 
your  stock-brokers  and  other  speculators,  who  have  been  bit- 
ten in  American  ventures,  may  have  raised  a  stunning  "  cry  " 
against  us  in  England,  there  is  a  vast  body  of  people  here 
besides  slaveholders,  who  justly 

"  Deem  their  own  land  of  every  land  the  pride, 
Beloved  by  heaven  o'er  Till  the  world  beside," 

and  who  know  that  at  this  moment  we  rank  among  the  first 
powers  of  the  world — a  position  which  we  not  only  claim,  but 
are  always  ready  and  able  to  maintain. 

The  style  you  assume  in  addressing  your  Northern  friends, 
is  in  -perfect  keeping  with  your  apparent  estimation  of  them. 
Though  I  should  be  the  last,  perhaps,  to  criticise  mere  style, 
I  could  not  but  be  struck  with  the  extremely  simple  manner 
of  your  letter.  You  seem  to  have  thought  you  were  writing 
a  tract  for  benighted  heathen,  and  telling  wonders  never  be- 
fore suggested  to  their  imagination,  and  so  far  above  their 
untutored  comprehension  as  to  require  to  be  related  in  the 
primitive  language  of  "  the  child's  own  book."  This  is  suffi- 
ciently amusing  ;  and  would  be  more  so,  but  for  the  coarse 


168  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

and  bitter  epithets  you  continually  apply  to  the  poor  slave- 
holders— epithets  which  appear  to  be  stereotyped  for  the  use 
of  abolitionists,  and  which  form  a  large  and  material  part  of 
all  their  arguments. 

But,  perhaps,  the  most  extraordinary  part  of  your  letter  is 
your  bold  denunciation  of  "  the  shameful  compromises'''  of  our 
constitution,  and  your  earnest  recommendation  to  those  you 
address  to  overthrow  or  revolutionize  it.  In  so  many  words 
you  say  to  them,  "  you  must  either  separate  yourselves  from 
all  political  connection  with  the  South,  and  make  your  own 
laws  ;  or  if  you  do  not  choose  such  a  separation,  you  must 
break  up  the  political  ascendancy  which  the  Southern  have 
had  for  so  long  a  time  over  the  Northern  States"  The  ital- 
ics in  this,  as  in  all  other  quotations,  are  your  own.  It  is  well 
for  those  who  circulate  your  letter  here,  that  the  constitution 
you  denounce  requires  an  overt  act  to  constitute  treason.  It 
may  be  tolerated  for  an  American  by  birth,  to  use  on  his  own 
soil  the  freedom  of  speaking  and  writing  which  is  guaranteed 
him,  and  abuse  our  constitution,  our  Union,  and  our  people. 
But  that  a  foreigner  should  use  such  seditious  language,  in  a 
circular  letter  addressed  to  a  portion  of  the  American  people, 
is  a  presumption  well  calculated  to  excite  the  indignation  of 
all.  The  party  known  in  this  country  as  the  abolition  party 
has  long  since  avowed  the  sentiments  you  express,  and  adopt- 
ed the  policy  you  enjoin.  At  the  recent  presidential  election, 
they  gave  over  62,000  votes  for  their  own  candidate,  and 
held  the  balance  of  power  in  two  of  the  largest  States — want- 
ing but  little  of  doing  it  in  several  others.  In  the  last  four 
years  their  vote  has  quadrupled.  Should  the  infatuation  con- 
tinue, and  their  vote  increase  in  the  same  ratio  for  the  next 
four  years,  it  will  be  as  large  as  the  vote  of  the  actual  slave- 
holders of  the  Union.  Such  a  prospect  is,  doubtless,  ex- 
tremely gratifying  to  you.  It  gives  hope  of  a  contest  on 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  169 

such  terms  as  may  insure  the  downfall  of  Slavery  or  our  con- 
stitution. The  South  venerates  the  constitution,  and  is  pre- 
pared to  stand  by  it  forever,  such  as  it  came  from  the  hands 
of  our  fathers  ;  to  risk  every  thing  to  defend  and  maintain 
it  in  its  integrity.  But  the  South  is  under  no  such  delusion 
as  to  believe  that  it  derives  any  peculiar  protection  from  the 
Union.-  On  the  contrary,  it  is  well  known  we  incur  peculiar 
danger,  and  that  we  bear  far  more  than  our  proportion  of  the 
burdens.  The  apprehension  is  also  fast  fading  away  that  any 
of  the  dreadful  consequences  commonly  predicted  will  neces- 
sarily result  from  a  separation  of  the  States.  And  come  what 
may,  we  are  firmly  resolved  that  OUR  SYSTEM  OF  DOMESTIC 
SLAVERY  SHALL  STAND.  '.  The  fate  of  the  Union,  then — but, 
thank  God,  not  of  republican  government — rests  mainly  in 
the  hands  of  the  people  to  whom  your  letter  is  addressed — 
the  "  professing  Christians  of  the  Northern  States  having  no 
concern  with  slaveholding,"  and  whom  with  incendiary  zeal 
you  are  endeavoving  to  stir  up  to  strife — without  which  fana- 
ticism can  neither  live,  move,  nor  have  any  being. 

We  have  often  been  taunted  for  our  sensitiveness  in'  regard 
to  the  discussion  of  Slavery.  Do  not  suppose  it  is  because 
we  have  any  doubts  of  our  rights,  or  scruples  about  asserting 
them.  There  was  a  time  when  such  doubts  and  scruples 
were  entertained.  Our  ancestors  opposed  the  introduction  of 
slaves  into  this  country,  and  a  feeling  adverse  to  it  was  handed 
down  from  them.  The  enthusiastic  love  of  liberty  fostered 
by  our  revolution  strengthened  this  feeling.  And  before  the 
commencement  of  the  abolition  agitation  here,  it  was  the 
common  sentiment  that  it  was  desirable  to  get  rid  of  Slavery. 
Many  thought  it  our  duty  to  do  so.  When  that  agitation 
arose,  we  were  driven  to  a  close  examination  of  the  subject  in 
all  its  bearings,  and  the  result  has  been  an  universal  convic- 
tion that  in  holding  slaves  we  violate  no  law  of  God, — inflict 
15 


170  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

no  injustice  on  any  of  his  creatures— while  the  terrible  con- 
sequences of  emancipation,  to  all  parties  and  the  world  at 
large,  clearly  revealed  to  us,  make  us  shudder  at  the  bare 
thought  of  it.  The  slaveholders  are,  therefore,  indebted  to 
the  abolitionists  for  perfect  ease  of  conscience,  and  the  satis- 
faction of  a  settled  and  unanimous  determination  in  reference 
to  this  matter.  And  could  their  agitation  cease  now,  I 
believe,  after  all,  the  good  would  preponderate  over  the  evil 
of  it  in  this  country.  On  the  contrary,  however,  it  is  urged 
on  with  frantic  violence,  and  the  abolitionists,  reasoning  in  the 
abstract,  as  if  it  were  a  mere  moral  or  metaphysical  specula- 
tion, or  a  minor  question  in  politics,  profess  to  be  surprised  at 
our  exasperation.  In  their  ignorance  and  recklessness,  they 
seem  to  be  unable  to  comprehend  our  feelings  or  position. 
The  subversion  of  our  rights,  the  destruction  of  our  property, 
the  disturbance  of  our  peace  and  the  peace  of  the  world,  are 
matters  which  do  not  appear  to  arrest  their  consideration. 
"When  revolutionary  France  proclaimed  "  hatred  to  kings  and 
unity  to  the  republic,"  and  inscribed  on  her  banners  "  France 
risen  against  tyrants,"  she  professed  to  be  only  worshipping 
"  abstract  rights."  And  if  there  can  be  such  things,  perhaps 
she  was.  Yet  all  Europe  rose  to  put  her  sublime  theories 
down.  They  declared  her  an  enemy  to  the  common  peace  ; 
that  her  doctrines  alone  violated  the  "  law  of  neighborhood," 
and,  as  Mr.  Burke  said,  justly  entitled  them  to  anticipate  the 
"  damnum  nondum  factum"  of  the  civil  law.  Danton,  Bar- 
rere,  and  the  rest  were  apparently  astonished  that  umbrage 
should  be  taken.  The  parallel  between  them  and  the  aboli- 
tionists holds  good  in  all  respects. 

The  rise  and  progress  of  this  fanaticism  is  one  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  age  in  which  we  live.  I  do  not  intend  to 
repeat  what  I  have  already  said,  or  to  trace  its  career  more 
minutely  at  present.  But  the  legislation,  of  Great  Britain 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY,  l7i 

•will  make  it  historical,  and  doubtless  you  must  feel  some  cu- 
riosity to  know  how  it  will  figure  on  the  page  of  the  annalist. 
I  think  I  can  tell  you.  Though  I  have  accorded  and  do  ac- 
cord to  you  and  your  party,  great  influence  in  bringing  about 
the  parliamentary  action  of  your  country,  you  must  not  expect 
to  go  down  to  posterity  as  the  only  cause  of  it.  Though  you 
trace  the  progenitors  of  abolition  from  1516,  through  a  long 
stream  with  divers  branches,  down  to  the  period  of  its  triumph 
in  your  country,  it  has  not  escaped  contemporaries,  and  will 
not  escape  posterity,  that  England,  without  much  effort,  sus- 
tained the  storm  of  its  scoffs,  and  threats,  until  the  moment 
arrived  when  she  thought  her  colonies  fully  supplied  with 
Africans  ;  and  declared  against  the  slave  trade,  only  when  she 
deemed  it  unnecessary  to  her,  and  when  her  colonies,  full  of 
slaves,  would  have  great  advantages  over  others  not  so  well 
provided.  Nor  did  she  agree  to  West  India  emancipation, 
until,  discovering  the  error  of  her  previous  calculation,  it  be- 
came an  object  to  have  slaves  free  throughout  the  Western 
world,  and,  on  the  ruins  of  the  sugar  and  cotton  growers  of 
America  and  the  Islands,  to  build  up  her  great  slave  empire 
in  the  East;  while  her  indefatigable  exertions,  still  continued, 
to  engraft  the  right  of  search  upon  the  law  of  nations,  on  the 
plea  of  putting  an  end  to  the  forever  increasing  slave  trade, 
are  well  understood  to  have  chiefly  in  view  the  complete  es- 
tablishment of  her  supremacy  at  sea.*  Nor  must  you  flatter 
yourself  that  your  party  will  derive  historic  dignity  from  the 

*  Ou  these  points,  let  me  recommend  you  to  consul!  a  very  able 
Essay  on  the  Slave  Trade  and  Right  of  Search,  by  M.  Jollivat,  re- 
cently published;  and  as  you  say,  since  writing  your  Circular  Letter, 
that  you  ''  burn  to  try  your  hand  on  another  little  Essay,  if  a  subject 
could  be  found,"  I  propose  to  you  to  ''try''  to  answer  this  question, 
put  by  M.  Jollivet  to  England  :  '•'  Pourquoi  sa  philanthropic  n'a  pas 
daigne,  jusqu'  a  present,  doubler  le  cap  de  Lonne-Esperance  ?" 


1*72  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

names  of  the  illustrious  British  statesmen  who  have  acted 
with  it.  Their  country's  ends  were  theirs.  They  have  stoop- 
ed to  use  you,  as  the  most  illustrious  men  will  sometimes  use 
the  vilest  instruments,  to  accomplish  their  own  purposes.  A 
few  philanthropic  common  places  and  rhetorical  flourishes, 
"in  the  abstract,"  have  secured  them  your  "sweet  voices," 
and  your  influence  over  the  tribe  of  mawkish  sentimentalists. 
Wilberforce  may  have  been  yours,  but  what  was  he  besides, 
but  a  wealthy  county  member?  You  must,  therefore,  expect 
to  stand  on  your  own  merits  alone  before  posterity,  or  rather 
that  portion  of  it  that  may  be  curious  to  trace  the  histoiy  of 
the  delusions  which,  from  time  to  time,  pass  over  the  surface  of 
human  affairs,  and  who  may  trouble  themselves  to  look 
through  the  ramifications  of  transcendentalism,  in  this  era  of 
extravagances.  And  how  do  you  expect  to  appear  in  their 
eyes?  As  Christians,  piously  endeavoring  to  enforce  the  will 
of  God,  and  carry  out  the  principles  of  Christianity  1  Cer- 
tainly not,  since  you  deny  or  pervert  the  Scriptures  in  the 
doctrines  you  advance  ;  and  in  your  conduct,  furnish  a  glaring 
contrast  to  the  examples  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles.  As 
philanthropists,  devoting  yourselves  to  the  cause  of. humanity, 
relieving  the  needy,  comforting  the  afflicted,  creating  peace 
and  gladness  and  plenty  round  about  you  ?  Certainly  not,  since 
you  turn  from  the  needy,  the  afflicted ;  from  strife,  sorrow 
and  starvation  which  surround  you  ;  close  your  eyes  and  hands 
upon  them  ;  shut  out  from  your  thoughts  and  feelings  the 
human  misery  which  is  real,  tangible,  and  within  your  reach, 
'to  indulge  your  morbid  imagination  in,  conjuring  up  woes  and 
wants  among  a  strange  people  in  distant  lands,  and  offi  ring 
them  succor  in  the  shape  of  costless  denunciations  of  their 
best  friends,  or  by  scattering  among  them  "  firebrands,  arrows 
and  death."  Such  folly  and  madness,  such  wild  mock- 
ery and  base  imposture,  can  never  win  for  you,  in  the  sober 


HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY.  173 

judgment  of  future  times,  the  name  of  philanthropists.  Will 
you  even  be  regarded  as  worthy  citizens?  Scarcely,  when 
the  purposes  you  have  in  view,  can  only  be  achieved  by  revo- 
lutionizing governments  and  overturning  social  systems,  and 
•when  you  do  not  hesitate,  zealously  and  earnestly,  to  recom- 
mend such  measures.  Be  assured,  then,  that  posterity  will 
not  regard  the  abolitionists  as  Christians,  philanthopists,  or 
virtuous  citizens.  It  will,  I  have  no  doubt,  look  upon  the 
mass  of  the  party  as  silly  enthusiasts,  led  away  by  designing 
characters,  as  is  the  case  with  all  parties  that  break  from  the 
great,  acknowledged  ties  which  bind  civilized  man  in  fellow- 
ship. The  leaders  themselves  will  be  regarded  as  mere  am- 
bitious men ;  not  taking  rank  with  those  whose  ambition  is 
"eagle-winged  and  sky -aspiring,"  but  belonging  to  that  mean 
and  selfish  class,  who  are  instigated  by  "rival-hating  envy," 
and  whose  base  thirst  is  for  notoriety  ;  who  cloak  their  designs 
under  vile  and  impious  hypocrisies,  and,  unable  to  shine  in 
higher  spheres,  devote  themselves  to  fanaticism,  as  a  trade. 
And  it  will  be  perceived  that,  even  in  that,  they  shunned  the 
highest  walk.  Religious  fanaticism  was  an  old  established 
vocation,  in  which  something  brilliant  was  required  to  attract 
attention.  They  could  not  be  George  Foxes,  nor  Joanna 
Southcotes,  nor  even  Joe  Smiths.  But  the  dullest  pretender 
could  discourse  a  jumble  of  pious  bigotry,  natural  rights,  and 
drivelling  philanthropy.  And,  addressing  himself  to  aged 
folly  and  youthful  vanity,  to  ancient  women,  to  ill-gotten 
wealth,  to  the  reckless  of  all  classes,  who  love  excitement  and 
change,  offer  each  the  cheapest  and  the  safest  glory  in  the 
market.  Hence,  their  numbers ;  and,  from  number  and 
clamor,  what  impression  they  have  made  on  the  world. 

Such,  I  am  persuaded,  is  the  light  in  which  the  abolitionists 
will  be  viewed  by  the  posterity  their  history  may  reach.     Un- 
less, indeed — which  God  forbid — circumstances  should  so  favor 
*15 


174  HAMMOND'S  LETTERS  ON  SLAVERY. 

as  to  enable  tHem  to  produce  a  convulsion  which  may  elevate 
them  higher  on  the  "bad  eminence  "  where  they  have  placed 
themselves. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be 

Your  obedient  servant, 

J.  H.  HAMMOND. 
THOMAS  CLARKSON,  Esq. 


N"OTE. — The  foregoing  Letters  were  not  originally  intended  for  pub- 
lication. In  preparing  them  for  the  press,  they  have  been  revised. 
The  alterations  and  corrections  made,  however,  have  been  mostly  ver- 
bal. Had  the  writer  fell  at  liberty  to  condense  the  two  letters  into 
one,  and  bring  up  the  history  of  abolition  to  the  period  of  publica- 
tion, he  might  have  presented  a  more  concise  and  perfect  argument,  and 
illustrated  his  views  more  forcibly,  by  reference  to  facts  recently  de- 
veloped. For  example,  since  writing  the  first,  the  letter  of  Mr.  Clark- 
son,  as  President  of  the  British  Anti-Slavery  Society,  to  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  denouncing  the  whole  scheme  of  "  Immigration,"  has  readied 
him ;  and  after  he  had  forwarded  the  last,  he  saw  it  stated,  that  Mr. 
Clarkson  had,  as  late  as  the  first  part  of  April,  addressed  the  Earl  of 
Aberdeen,  and  declared,  that  all  efforts  to  suppress  the  African  slave 
trade  had  fully  failed.  It  may  be  confidently  expected,  that  it  will 
be  ere  long  announced  from  the  same  quarter,  that  the  "  experiment  " 
of  West  India  emancipation  has  also  proved  a  complete  abortion. 
/  Should  the  terms  which  have  been  applied  to  the  abolitionists  ap- 
pear to  any  as  unduly  severe,  let  it  remembered,  that  the  direct  aim 
of  these  people  is  to  destroy  us  by  the  most  shocking  of  all  processes  ; 
and  that,  having  a  large  portion  of  the  civilized  world  for  their  au- 
dience, they  daily  and  systematically  heap  upon  us  the  vilest  calum-  . 
nies  and  most  unmitigated  abuse.  Clergymen  lay  aside  their  bibles, 
and  females  unsex  themselves,  to  carry  on  this  horrid  warfare  against 
slaveholders.  • 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY  * 


INTRODUCTION. 

THE  original  of  the  essay  which  "follows  was  originally  pub- 
lished in  the  pages  of  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger, 
sometime  in  the  year  1837.  At  that  period  the  subject  had 
not  so  greatly  engaged  the  attention  of  the  Southern  people, 
as  in  more  recent  years ;  the  progress  of  the  anti-Slavery 
sentiment,  in  the  Northern  States  and  other  regions,  not  hav- 
ing shown  itself  so  active,  pressing  and  insolent  as  it  has 
since  become.  The  very  favorable  opinion  with  which  the 
article  was,  at  the  time,  received,  and  the  demand  for  copies, 
prompted  its  republication,  in  the  form  of  a  separate  pamph- 
let, which  appeared  in  1838.  This  pamphlet  was  dedicated 
to  the  Honorable,  the  Delegates  from  South  Carolina,  in  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States,  in  the  following  language : 
"  GENTLEMEN  : 

"  If  I  did  not  regard  you  as  representatives,  not 
less  of  the  interests  of  the  slave  of  Carolina,  than  #f  the 
rights  of  his  owner,  I  should  not  trouble  you  with  this  in- 
scription, nor  the  press  with  the  publication  of  this  little 
essay.  Originally  put  forth  in  one  of  our  Southern  periodi- 

*  Being  a  brief  review  of  the  writings  of  Miss  Martineau,  and 
other  persons,  on  the  subject  of  Negro  Slavery,  as  it  now  exists  iu 
the  United  States.  By  W.  GILMORE  SIMMS,  Esq.,  of  South  Carolina. 


176  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

cals,  it  has  been  so  far  honored  by  the  approbation  of  its 
readers,  as  to  make  it  desirable,  in  the  estimation  of  many, 
that  it  should  have  a  more  extended  circulation.  This  it 
should  not  have,  if  I  could  bring  myself  for  an  instant  to  be- 
lieve, that  I  was  moved  to  its  preparation  by  any  motive  but 
a  sincere  desire  for  the  truth  ;  or,  if  I  could  doubt  that  it  con- 
tains principles  which  no  sophistry  can  subvert,  and  no  mis- 
applied ingenuity,  whether  of  sheer  cunning  or  of  self-blinding 
philanthropy,  could  keep  from  the  ultimate  reception  of  man- 
kind. The  argument,  indeed,  is  chiefly  drawn  from  what 
would  seem  to  be  the  inevitable  sense  of  mankind  upon  the 
subject  of  which  it  treats,  as  that  sense  is  illustrated  and 
shown  by  the  practices  and  the  necessities  of  men  throughout 
the  world,  and  through  all  its  successive  ages,  from  its  known 
beginning.  I  will  not  seek,  therefore,  to  fortify  my  views  by 
the  accumulation  of  authorities  which  he  who  runs  may  read. 
In  my  humble  notion,  the  whole  world  of  human  experience 
is  tributary  to  their  maintenance ;  and  I  would  as  soon  doubt 
that  it  is  truth  which  I  profess,  as  question  the  final  triumph 
of  those  opinions  upon  which  the  practice  of  all  nations  has 
invariably  settled  down.  I  speak  now,  only,  as  I  deem  it  de- 
sirable that  we  should  facilitate  the  advent  of  truth,  and  not 
because  I  have  any  doubts  of  her  final  coming.  We  should 
labor  in  her  assistance,  not  so  much  because  she  may  need 
our  service,  as  because  our  feeble  race  stands  so  grievously  in 
need  of  hers.  This  we  can  best  do,  not  by  persuasive  and 
specious  doctrines,  and  fine  flexible  sayings,  but  simply  by  a 
firm  adherence  to  what  we  know,  and  to  what  we  think  we 
have  already -gained.  As  yet,  we  have,  confessedly,  but  par- 
tial glimmerings  of  her  divine  presence,— her  fixed  and  all 
sufficing  light ! — we  must  treasure  up  these  gleams  and 
glimpses,  few  and  feeble  though  they  be,  until,  to  our  more 
familiar  eyes,  star  by  star,  she  unfolds  her  perfect  form,  and, 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  177 

with  the  loveliness  and  the  light  of  heaven,  irradiates  the  dim 
cloud  that  now  hangs  between  her  and  the  earth.  That  we 
shall  pray  long  and  vainly  for  this  ideal  of  the  moral  world — 
that  we  shall  look  for  it,  with  but  little  hope,  whether  in  your 
day  or  in  mine, — is  not  a  matter  of  difficult  prediction  while 
there  are  so  many,  and  so  bold,  prophets  that  proclaim  them- 
selves adversely  throughout  the  land.  But,  that  the  contin- 
ued and  cheering  presence  of  this  blessed  hope  in  the  hearts 
of  the  few,  will  at  length  achieve  what  they  so  earnestly  seek 
and  sometimes  die  to  realize,  may  be  predicted  with  not  less 
confidence.  Let  us,  at  least,  labor  that  we  may  verify  our 
own  desires,  and  find  renewed  impulse  to  our  labors,  as  we 
behold  the  industry  of  those  who  toil  against  us,  and  those 
things,  which  we  conceive  to  be  justified  by  their  perfect  con- 
sonance with  the  divine  law.  We  may  neither  of  us  do  much 
in  this  holy  cause,  but,  if  we  gather,  each,  but  a  single  shell 
from  the  great  ocean  of  truth — to  employ  the  fancy  of  one 
whose  constant  thought  was  the  best  philanthropy— we  shall 
at  least  diminish  the  toils  of  those  who  shall  follow  in  our 
footsteps  along  the  shores  of  the  same  solitary  and  unknown 
regions." 

There  is  nothing  in  the  tone  or  sentiment  of  the  preceding 
that  the  author  would  change,  and  the  interval  which  has 
elapsed  since  the  publication  of  the  essay  and  the  present 
time,  has  confirmed  him  in  most  of  his  convictions,  while 
enabling  him  greatly  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of  his  observations, 
and  to  add  to  the  number  of  his  facts. 

It  is  thought  by  the  present  publishers,  that  the  views  here 
expressed,  may  still  serve  a  useful  purpose,  in  connection  with 
those  of  others,  in  the  defence  of  a  domestic  institution, 
which  we  hold  to  be  not  simply  within  the  sanctions  of  jus- 
tice and  propriety,  but  as  constituting  one  "of  the  most  essen- 
tial agencies,  under  the  divine  plan,  for  promoting  the  gen- 


178  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

eral  progress  of  civilization,  and  for  elevating,  to  a  condition 
of  humanity,  a  people  otherwise  barbarous,  easily  depraved, 
and  needing  the  help  of  a  superior  condition — a  power  from 
•without — to  rescue  them  from  a  hopelessly  savage  state.  In 
consenting  to  this  republication,  I  am  not  unaware  of  the  dis- 
advantages under  which  it  must  labor,  in  comparison  with 
other  essays  subsequently  written.  When  I  wrote,  but  little 

•  had  been  said  in  defence  of  African  Slavery  in  Ameiica. 
Prescription  was  against  it  everywhere.  All  our  maxims, 

"  our  declamation,  the  pet  phrases,  equally  of  philanthropy  and 
of  demagogueism,  were  designed  to  render  it  odious  and 
criminal ;  and,  in  the  defence  usually  offered,  on  the  part  of 
those  who  maintained  it,  it  was  generally  admitted  that  a 
•wrong  had  been  done,  and  that  a  social  evil  did  exist,  which 
expediency  alone  denied  that  we  should  seek  to  repair,  or  put 
away  from  us.  The  author  was  among  the  very  few  who 
took  other  and  higher  grounds.  He  denied  that  any  wrong 
had  been  done  to  the  African,  in  making  him  labor  in  Amer- 
ica. He  denied  that  any  evil,  but  rather  a  great  good,  and 
blessing,  accrued  from  his  appropriate  but  subordinate  em- 
ployment in  the  States  of  the  South.  He  contended,  that  the 
institution  of  Slavery,  per  se,  was  not  in  violation  of  the  di- 

|  vine  law  ;  that  it  had  existed,  in  all  ages,  and  from  the  earliest 
periods,  under  the  immediate  sanction  of  Heaven ;  and  that 
most  nations,  while  it  endured  among  them,  were  in  the  en- 
joyment of  the  highest  human  prosperity.  But  the  argument 
of  the  essay  need  not  be  anticipated  here.  Enough  that, 
under  certain  slavish  habits  of  thinking,  many  of  these  opin- 
ions were  regarded  as  heresies,  even  in  the  South.  It  was 
not  easy,  even  with  the  interests  of  the  community  to  support 
the  truth,  to  eradicate  that  falsehood  from  their  minds,  which 
had  been  the  growth  of  prescription  and  the  habit  of 
thought,  of  phrase  and  formula,  for  a  hundred  years — errors 


THE   MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  1*79 

of  opinion,  when  habitual,  being  entirely  hostile  to  all  inde- 
pendent and  honest  thinking.  But  the  progress  of  fifteen 
years,  since  the  first  publication  of  this  essay,  has  effected  a 
corresponding  progress  to  independence  in  the  opinion  and 
sentiment  of  our  people.  Forced,  by  external  and  hostile 
pressure,  to  re-examine  the  argument,  the  grounds  upon 
which  their  title  rests  to  the  labor  of  their  slaves,  they  have 
found  themselves  fortified  by  higher  authority  than  they  had 
originally  claimed  in  mere  expediency.  It  is  one  of  the  happy 
results  of  evil  always,  according  to  the  benign  decree  of  pro- 
vidence, that  it  must  ultimately  work  out  the  fruits  of  good, 
in  despite  of  its  malicious  contriver;  and  it  should  be  a  sub- 
ject of  great  gratification  to  the  people  of  the  South,  that 
abolition,  with  all  its  annoyances  and  offences  against  our 
peace  and  safety,  has  resulted  in  our  moral  reassurance, — in 
the  establishing,  to  our  own  perfect  conviction,  our  right  to  the 
labor  of  our  slaves,  and  in  relieving  us  from  all  that  doubt,  that 
morbid  feeling  of  weakness  in  respect  to  the  moral  of  our  claim, 
which  was  undoubtedly  felt  so  long  as  we  forebore  the  proper 
consideration  of  the  argument.  Twenty  years  ago,  few  per- 
sons in  the  South  undertook  to  justify  Negro  Slavery,  except 
on  the  score  of  necessity.  Now,  very  few  persons  in  the  same 
region,  question-  their  perfect  right  to  the  labor  of  their  ; 
slaves, — and  more, — their  moral  obligation  to  keep  them  still 
subject,  as  slaves,  and  to  compel  their  labor,  so  long  as  they 
remain  the  inferior  beings  which  we  find  them  now,  and  which 
they  seem  to  have  been  from  the  beginning.  This  is  a  great 
good,  the  fruit  wholly  of  the  hostile  pressure.  It  has  forced 
us  to  examine  into  the  sources  of  the  truth ;  to  reject  the 
specious  formula,  which  originally  deluded  us,  and  still  de- 
ludes so  many ;  and  to  feel  the  strength  of  our  argument,  by 
which  we  are  justified  to  our  own  consciences,  and  to  know  our 
iustification,  as  slave-holders,  to  be  complete,  according  to  all 


THE    MORALS    OF   SLAVERY. 


proper  morals,  and  in  accordance  equally  with  sacred  ard 
profane  experience. 

I  have  but  to  add  that,  in  the  revision  of  the  review  which 
follows,  I  have  not  confined  myself  to  a  consideration  of  the 
case,  according  to  the  condition  of  the  country  when  it  was 
written,  the  lights  then  possessed  and  the  opinions  entertained. 
I  have  not  scrupled  to  make  such  additions,  alterations  and 
amendments,  as  my  own  longer  experience,  as  well  as  that  of 
our  people,  and  the  subsequent  thought  given  to  the  subject, 
shall  have  suggested  as  proper  and  useful,  to  the  discussion. 
In  the  plan  of  my  paper,  I  have  made  no  changes.  It  has 
seemed  to  me  proper  that  I  should  still  address  myself  to 
Miss  Martineau,  as  fairly  representing  that  tribe  whose  rest- 
less eagerness,  morbid  self-esteem,  and  complacent  philanthro- 
py—never so  well  satisfied  as  when,  preaching  reform,  it 
designs  revolution — are  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  dangers 
which  threaten  the  existing  civilization  and  safety  of  mankind. 
In  showing  up  her  mistakes  of  fact  and  opinion,  I  do  but  in- 
dicate those  which  are  common  to  her  sect;  and,  what  is  de- 
sultory in  the  manner  of  the  essay,  may»be  forgiven,  in  con- 
sideration of  the  freedom  which  it  affords  ;  by  which  the 
gravity  of  the  discussion  is  relieved,  and  the  occasional 
employment  of  what  is  personal  and  anecdotical,  is  made  the 
better  to  illustrate  the  ease. 

CHARLESTON,  July  1,  1)552. 


IN  the  course  of  my  wanderings,  last  summer,  in  some  of 
the  Northern  States,  a  friend,  who  had  possessed  himself  of 
the  volumes  of  Miss  Martineau,  descriptive  of  her  Western 
Travel,  drew  my  attention  to  those  portions  of  her  work 
which  related  especially  to  South-Carolina.  He  was  anxious 
that,  as  a  native  of  that  State,  who  had  resided  in  it  all  his 
life,  and  who  might,  accordingly,  be  assumed  to  know  the 
condition  and  character  of  its  society,  I  should  say  in  what 
degree  the  good  lady  had  erred  in  the  statement  of  her  facts. 
Her  inferences  in  respect  to  them,  we  were  both  agreed,  might 
be  reserved  for  after  consideration.  Her  report,  I  need  not 
say,  had  been  by  no  means  a  grateful  one.  She  had  seen 
many  things  which  she  understood  unfavorably.  She  had 
reported  many  other  unseen  things,  equally  unfavorable,  on 
the  authority  of  others;  and  her  conjectures,  and  doubts,  and 
suspicions,  were  of  a  sort  sufficiently  to  show,  that  the  indul- 
gent entertainment  which  she  had  found  in  Carolina,  had  not 
tended  very  materially  to  raise  her  estimate  of  a  people, 
whom,  it  was  evident,  she  was  prepared  to  study  only  through 
the  medium  of  her  prejudices.  My  friend,  who  was  a  north- 
ern man,  agreed  that  Miss  Martineau  was  a  very  favorable 
sample  of  the  more  intelligent  among  the  abolitionists;  that 
she  had  embodied  pretty  generally  their  authorities  and  argu- 
ments, and  that  her  alleged  facts,  and  the  inferences  drawn 
16 


182  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

from  them,  were  such  as  constituted  the  materials  of  warfare 
commonly  employed  by  the  fraternity.  To  expose  her  errors 
and  to  answer  her  charges,  was  sufficiently  to  answer  all ;  and 
as  he  was  really  curious,  and,  I  believe,  in.  good  faith  solici- 
tous of  the  truth,  ,1  was  not  unwilling  to  undertake  the  task 
which  he  pointed  out,  and  to  go  over  with  him,  page  by  page, 
the  two  thick  duodecimos  of  the  philanthropic  lady.  Pencil 
in  hand,  we  noted  all  her  points,  not  only  in  respect  to  Caro- 
lina, but  all  the  States,  so  far  as  the  subjects  were  familiar  to 
either  of  us  ;  and  the  result  was  the  expression,  on  his  part,  of 
a  wish,- that  I  should  take  up  the  matter  in  some  of  our  pe- 
riodicals, and  answer  to  her,  as  I  had  done  to  him,  the  charges 
which  she  had  made  against  my  particular  province.  It  was 
only  a  natural  opinion  that,  to  expose  her  blunders  in  regard 
to  one  of  the  States,  we  should  reasonably  compel  a  proper 
caution,  on  the  part  of  the  reader,  in  the  adoption  of  her  au- 
thority in  respect  to  any;  and  it  might  be  that  the  sectional 
labors  of  one  citizen  would  thus  persuade  others,  in  other 
regions  which  the  lady  traveller  had  disparaged,  to  undertake 
the  patriotic  labor  of  following  her  footsteps,  and  correcting 
her  blunders,  as  fast  as  she  committed  them.  It  was  agreed, 
between  us,  that  the  first  essential  was  to  disprove  the  facts 

fetof  the  abolitionists.  They  had  relied  upon  these  alleged 
facts  in  the  first  instance,  to  create  an  antipathy  to  the  slave- 
holder. To  paint  the  horrors  of  Slavery,  so  as  to  revolt  the 
sensibilities  of  humanity,  was  ,the  first  great  means  by  which 
to  show  that  the  institution  was  unnatural  and  irreligious,  and 
its  tendencies  necessarily  inlyiman.  The  rest  was  easy.  Our 

'  first  business,  accordingly,  was  with  the  facts ;  to  dispose  of 
these,  was  to  clear  the  way  to  an  inquiry  into  the  institution 
of  Slavery,  per  se,  as  a  moral  question.  No  matter  how  seem- 
ingly insignificant  was  the  fact  asserted,  it  thus  became  im- 
portant to  the  discussion ;  and  the  insignificance  of  the  details 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  183 

was  not  a  sufficient  reason  for  shoving  them  aside  from  con- 
sideration. The  common  mind  rareiy  reasons  independently 
of  practical  considerations ;  and  its  prejudices,  by  which  the 
most  wholesome  laws  are  overthrown,  are  morally  founded  in 
matters  of  fact,  which,  intrinsically,  have,  perhaps,  no  sort  of 
bearing  upon  the  morals  of  the  subject.  To  assert,  as  we  do 
in  argument,  that  there  is  no  course  so  illogical  as  that  which 
reasons  from  the  abuse  against  the  use,  is  scarcely  sufficient 
for  our  purpose  when  dealing  with  the  ignorant.  It  must  be 
our  care,  also,  to  show  the  gross  exaggeration,  if  not  utter 
mis-statement,  in  the  matter  of  the  abuse; — show  that  the 
morals  of  the  philanthropist  do  not  deny  that  he  should  lie 
ad  libitum,  even  when  he  proposes  nothing  less  than  a  holy 
warfare  in  the  cause  of  truth  ;  and  that  if  Slavery  in  the  States 
of  the  South  is  to  be  overthrown,  it  must  be  by  argument 
drawn  from  intrinsic  considerations  of  the  institution  itself, 
and  not  from  the  alleged  inhumanity  of  the  slave-holder. 

I  was  not  unwilling  to  comply  with  the  request  of  my 
friend — not  unwilling  to  assist  the  stranger  to  our  country  in 
arriving  at  a  knowledge — which  appears  so  equally  difficult 
and  necessary  — of  a  region  of  the  world,  which  our  foreign 
brethren  are  so  well  pleased  to  insist  upon  as  barbarous.  But 
here,  at  the  very  threshold  of  the  subject,  my  pride  revolted 
at  the  task.  Why  should  we  account  to  these  people  ? 
What  are  they  that  they  should  subject  us  to  the  question  ? 
We  are  their  equals ;  sprung  from  the  same  stocks,  in  pos- 
session of  the  same  authorities,  learning  at  the  same  schools, 
taught  from  the  same  books,  by  the  same  great  masters 
of  thought  and  language,  and  in  the  fall  assertion  of  an  equ 
civilization  and  freedom.  Speaking  once  with  Miss  C.  Sedg- 
wick, — a  lady  whom,  in  spite  of  her  abolition  prejudices,  I 
greatly  esteem, — in  respect  to  the  gradual  progress  of  the 
negro  under  our  care  and  tuition,  to  the  exercise  of  a  higher 


184  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

moral  and  intellect  than  he  had  ever  exhibited,  as  a  freeman  in 
his  own  or  in  any  country,  she  asked  "But  what  security  do 
you  give  us  that  you  will  continue  to  advance  him  ?"  The 
natural  reply  was  immediate.  -"Give  you  security?  You 
mistake.  We  offer  you  none.  We  are  your  equals.  We 
•  owe  you  no  accountability.  Our  responsibility  is  to  God  and 
our  own  consciencies  alone."  The  same  natural  pride  would  . 
prompt  us  to  answer  the  scorner  with  scorn,  and  the  assailant 
with  defiance.  What  we  offer  is  voluntary.  What  we  put 
on  record,  is  not  in  our  defence,  but  in  the  assertion  of  the 
truth,  and  that  we  may  furnish  the  due  authorities  to  history. 
The  very  approach  to  the  subject,  on  the  part  of  the  stranger, 
is  an  implied  impertinence.  It  goes  on  the  assumption  of 
our  inferiority,  as  well  as  our  error.  -  The  Southern  people 
form  a  nation,  and,  as  such,  it  derogates  from  their  dignity 
that  they -should  be  called  to  answer  at  the  tribunals  of  any 
other  nation.  When  that  call  shall  be  definitely  or  impera- 
tively made,  they  will  answer  with  their  weapons,  and  in  no 
other  language  than  that  of  war  to  the  knife. 

As  individuals,  the  annoyance  of  such  an  approach  is  more 
acutely  felt,  since  it  outrages  their  personal  self-esteem.  The 
Southron  asks  with  indignation,  why  it  is  that  he  and  his 
people  should  be  supposed  guilty  of  brutalities  and  cruelties 
to  the  negro  race,  which  are  inconsistent  with  the  civilization 
of  that  race  to  which  he  belongs?  What  do  you  see  in  us, 
our  manners,  tastes,  opinions  or  habits,  to  lead  you  to  think 
us  less  humane  and  intelligent  than  yourselves  ;  less  consider- 
ate of  the  claims,  less  solicitous  of  the  sympathies  of  the  in- 
•eiior  ?  And  he  may  well  ask  these  questions,  with  astonish- 
ment, since,  what  he  sees,  elsewhere,  is  by  no  means  calculated  ' 
to  prompt  his.  doubts  of  an  inferior  humanity  in  his  own 
bosom.  Yet  the  daily  narrative  and  clamor  of  the  abolition- 
ists teaches  this  very  doubt,  which  it  is  their  policy  to  incul- 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  185 

cate.  In  conflict  with  this  assumption  of  our  assailants,  it  is 
usual  to  ascribe  to  the  people  of  the  South  a  somewhat  supe- 
rior refinement  Their  grace  of  manner,  courteous  bearing, 
gentleness  of  deportment,  studious  forbearance  and  unobtru- 
siveness — their  social  characteristics,  in  general — all  assumed 
to  spring  from  the  peculiar  institution  of  Negro  Slavery,  as 
affording  superior  time,  as  well  as  leisure,  to  the  controlling 
race — are  usually  admitted  without  question.  The  testimony 
of  the  intelligent  European  is  commonly  to  this  effect.  That 
these  traits  should  be  held  consistent  with  brutal  practice, 
savage  passions,  and  a  reckless  tyranny  over  inferiors,  is  natu- 
rally a  great  difficulty  in  the  way  of  those  whose  habit  it  is 
to  recognize  good  manners  as,  in  some  degree,  a  warranty 
for  good  morals.  In  regard  to  the  former,  the  Southron,  who 
is  something  of  a  traveller,  has  rarely  occasion  to  feel  morti- 
fied at  the  comparison  with  the  people  among  whom  he 
travels ;  and  his  wonder  is  even  greater  than  his  mortification, 
•when  he  finds  himself  charged  with  crimes  against  humanity, 
such  as  are  in  strange  conflict  with  his  social  attainments  and 
position.  To  these  charges  it  is  not  his  custom  to  offer  any 
reply ;  his  scorn  of  the  imputation  usually  rendering  him 
unconscious  of  the  assailant,  whom  he  regards  rather  as  a 
slanderer  than  an  adversary. 

What  is  true  of  the  relations  of  the  Southern  people  with 
the  Northern,  is,  in  a  great  degree,  true  of  the  general  rela- 
tions of  both  people  with  the  British  ;  and  the  inordinate  self- 
esteem  of  the  latter,  coupled  with  quite  an  adequate  share  of 
ignorance,  makes  it  almost  impossible  to  teach  them,  through 
any  processes,  except  those  of  war,  to  accord  the  simplest  jus-  - 
tice  to  their  els-Atlantic  descendants.  In  ordinary  cases — 
viewing  the  proposition  abstractly— ^and  a  colony,  it  will  be 
taken  for  granted,  must  resemble,  in  all  substantial  par- 
ticulars, the  country  from  which  it  goes  forth.  In  its  habits 
*16 


186  THK    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

and  pursuits,  its  tastes  and  objects,  its  general  modes  of  think- 
ing, and  the  common  carriage  of  society,  its  people  will  exhibit, 
with  very  trifling  modifications,  the  race  from  which  they 
sprang.  This,  which  is  true  as  a  rule,  is  yet  not  without  its 
exceptions ;  and  it  is  the  pleasure  of  the  people  of  Great  Bri- 
tain to  regard  those  of  America  as  falling  very  far  short  of  those 
superior  standards,  of  mind  and  society,  which  they  have  set 
up  as  their  own.  Their  travellers,  accordingly,  when  they 
come  among  us,  and  write  about  us,  do  so  with  the  air  of 
persons  surveying  the  savages  of  some  newly  found  country- 
some  Polynesia  or  Australasia — that  fifth  portion  of  the  world 
for  which  they  are  only  now  providing  fine  names  and  proba- 
bly foul  destinies.  Their  very  first  approaches  among  us  are 
made  with  an  air  of  superiority  ;  either  of  an  insolence  which 
.contemns,  or  of  a  patronage  which  is  scarcely  less  offensive; 
and  they  speak  with  certain  assumptions  forever  in  their 
mouths,  by  which  we  are  required  to  waive  altogether  the  ad- 
vantages of  ancestry — forego  any  claims  that  might  result  to 
us  from  the  possession  of  an  origin,  a  language  and  a  litera- 
ture, in  common  with  themselves, — and  content  ourselves  with 
that  place,  on  the  lower  form,  from  which  it  is  scarcely  possi- 
ble, or  to  be  permitted,  that  we  shall  at  any  time  emerge  into 
honorable  consideration.  Our  intercourse,  in  limine,  begins 
with  a  distinct  assertion  of  our  inferiority  and  degeneracy  ;  and 
the  pert  noble,  or  the  unsexed  spinster,  never  rising  to  a  con- 
sideration of  what  has  been  done  by  our  branch  of  the  family, 
almost  single-handed,  will  impudently  set  themselves  up  as 
the  social  and  political  teachers  of  a  people,  which,  from  its 
*•  'own  ranks,  has  produced,  in  modern  and  recent  times,  many 
of  the  master  spirits  of  the  world.  One  of  the  consequences 
of  this  practice,  is,  to  exclude  all  such  persons  from  the  society 
of  those  who  could  best  enlighten  them  in  American  facts, 
and  give  them  the  most  just  notions  of  American  morals  and 


THE    MORALS    OF   SLAVERY.  18V 

manners.  Persons  haying  a  becoming  sense  of  their  own  claims, 
and  those  of  their  country,  never  permit  these  boors  to  enter 
their  habitations.  They  fall,  accordingly,  into  the  hands  of 
those  only  who  seek  notoriety ; — of  those  who,  conscious  of 
inferior  position  at  home,  are  eager  to  seize  upon  the  titled  or 
the  notorious  foreigner — any  one,  indeed,  who  can,  by  any 
possibility,  lift  them  into  local  consideration.  These  persons 
conciliate  the  visitor  by  such  concessions  as,  did  they  represent 
the  nation,  would  wholly  degrade  it;  and,  not  the  least  of  the 
evils  accruing  from  their  toadyism  is,  that  they  suffer,  without 
denial,  the  assumptions  of  the  stranger  at  the  expense  of  their 
country.  This  is  the  fruit  equally  of  their  desire  to  flatter  the 
guest,  and  of  their  incapacity  to  engage  in  the  argument.  The 
enlightened  Englishman  will  find  little  difficulty  in  recognizing 
the  better  society, -of  the  United  States  in  those  who  make 
him  the  fewest  possible  approaches ; — those  who  let  him  see, 
at  the  outset,  that  their  desire  of  society,  however  eager,  is 
not  to  be  gratified  at  the  sacrifice  of  their  proper  self-esteem. 
The  reserve  of  this  class,  towards  the  foreigner,  is  in  due  degree 
with  the  eagerness  with  which  the  merely  pretentious  press 
torwads  him.  What  he  hears  and  learns  from  the  latter,  in 
respect  to  parties,  sections,  or  the  country  at  large,  must  always 
be  taken  with  a  due  caution,  which  never,  at  any  time,  over- 
looks the  doubtful  moral  of  that  authority  which  begins  with 
the  surrender  of  the  individual  amour  propre. 

The  misfortune  of  Miss  Martineau  was  in  falling  very  fre- 
quently into  such  hands  as  these,  when  she  came  to  this  coun- 
try;  a  circumstance  which,  in  addition  to  the  farther  fact  that 
her  abolition  sympathies  conducted  her  naturally  into  the 
embraces  of  those  who  were  hostile  to  the  South,  served  suf- 
ficiently to  fill,  her  mind  with  false  facts,  as  it  had  already 
been  sufficiently  stored  with  false  philosophy.  That  she  saw 
many  intelligent  and  worthy  people,  besides,  we  do  not  deny  ; 


188 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 


but  she  saw  them,  and  sought  them,  only  that  she  might  ex- 
ercise her  favorite  passion  for  polemics.  She  sought  them  for 
the  purposes  of  encounter;  and  frequently  chuckled, in  fancied 
triumphs, over  statesmen  and  philosophers,  who  preferred  tem- 
porary submission  to  her  tongue,  rather  than  encounter  the 
toil  of  appealing  to  a  mind  which,  on  certain  subjects,  was,  to 
the  full,  as  inaccessible  as  her  ears. 

When  Miss  Martineau,  after  acknowledging  the  peculiar 
disability  under  which  she  labors,  in  being  deaf,  proceeds  to 
hunt  up  and  to  dilate  upon  some  of  the  advantages  pf  such  an 
infirmity ;  and,  with  an  ingenuity  which  deserves  credit,  (and 
in  New-England  might  have  found  it,  had  she  withheld  her 
remarks  upon  that  region,)  dilates  upon  the  winning  power 
which  her  trumpet  exercises  in  a  tcte-a-t6te — we,  at  once,  dis- 
cover the  sort  of  person  with  whom  we  have  to  deal.  Had 
she  written  volumes  with  the  design  of  illustrating  the  pecu- 
liar properties  of  her  own  mind,  she  could  have  said  nothing 
which  better  conveys  the  idea  of  the  adroit  casuist,  ready  and 
able  to  make  the  best  case  out  of  the  worst ; — to  raise  subtle 
hypotheses, — to  suggest  means  pf  fight  and  defence  in  the 
worst  cases, — to  plan  sorties  and  escapes  ;  and,  whatever  might 
be  the  fate  of  the  conflict,  if  she  did  not  "  change  sides,"  at  least 
"still  continue  to  dispute:"  The  passage  of  her  preface,  in 
which  this  singular  stretch  of  self  deception  (if  we  may  so  style 
it)  occurs,  is  truly  an  amusing  one.  Her  accuracy  of  infor- 
mation, she  insists,  is  not  diminished  in  consequence  of  her 
deafness;  for  her  trumpet  is  one  of  "  singular  fidelity,"  and  she 
"  gains  more  in  a  tete-a-tete,  than  is  given  to  people  who  hear 
general  conversation."  This  is  one  'of  those  passages,  with 
which  the  volume  abounds,  which  most  admirably  illustrate 
the  perfect  assurance  of  the  author.  What  person  beside  her- 
self would  undertake  to  argue  for  the  advantages  of  being 
deaf  ?  To  prove  that  the  ears  are  but  surplusage,  is  certainly 


THE    MORALS    OF   SLAVERY.  189 

to  suggest  to  the  deity  a  process  of  improvement,  by  which 
the  curtailment  of  a  sense  will  help  the  endowments  of  a  phi- 
losopher. Here,  she  assumes  cognizance  of  a  subject,  and  de- 
cides a  preference,  which  she  is  physically  incapable  of  con- 
sidering; and,  without  thought — for  the  reflection  of  a  single 
instant  would  have  saved  her  from  the  absurditv — proceeds 
to  determine  upon  a  point  obviously  beyond  her  capacity.  Satis- 
fied, herself,  with  the  "charm  of  her  trumpet,"  and  fully  per- 
suaded, as  she  seems  to  be,  of  the  truth  of  what  she  lias  said, 
she  is  yet  dubious  that  there  will  be  some  unwisely  skeptical 
whom  it  is  yet  necessary  to  convince ;  and  the  reason  which 
she  gives  for  the  truth  that  is  in  her,  may  amuse  many  whom 
it  will  certainly  fail  to  satisfy. 

"  Its  charm  (the  charm  of  chatting  through  a  trumpet  with 
a  deaf  damsel  of  a  '  certain  age  ! ')  consists  in  the  new  feeling 
which  it  imparts,  of  ease  and  privacy .!" 

It  does  not  seem  to  strike  her  for  an  instant  that,  among  a 
people,  like  the  Americans,  who  are  singularly  susceptible  of 
the  ridiculous,  there  would  le  nothing  half  so  awkward  as  to  be 
subjected  to  this  chaiming  tcte-a-tete.  Yet  such  was  the  case. 
"We  know  many  intelligent  persons  who  declined  to  make  the 
lady's  acquaintance  while  in  this  country,  simply  on  account 
of  her  trumpet,  and  the  awkwardness  of  such  a  chat  in  com- 
pany, who,  otherwise,  would  have  been  very  well  pleased  to 
know  her,  and  who  might  have  afforded  her  some  very  useful 
information.  This  latter  opinion,  she,  perhaps,  will  not  so 
readily  believe  ;  since  she  tells  us,  in  brief,  that,  during  her 
travels  of  nearly  two  years  among  the,  Americans,  seldom 
more  than  two  weeks  in  any  one  place,  and  thus  dividing  her 
time  among  fifteen  or  eighteen  millions  of  persons,  she  made 
the  acquaintance  of  nearly  all  of  the  distinguished  people? 
and  believes  that  she  "  heard  every  argument  that  can  possi- 
bly be  adduced  in  vindication  or  palliation  of  Slavery !"  In  a 


190  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

note,  only  a  few  pages  apart  from  tliis  precious  sample  of  as- 
surance, she  gives  a  little  anecdote  which  will  answer  all  the 
purposes  of  a  commentary  upon  it.  She  says  : 

"  A  fact  regarding  Mr.  Gallatin,  shows  what  the  obscurity 
of  country  life  in  the  United  States  may  be.  His  estate  was 
originally  in  Virginia.  By  a  new  division  it  was  thrown  into 
the  back  part  of  Pennsylvania.  He  ceased  to  be  heard  of  for 
some  years During  this  time  an  advertisement  ap- 
peared in  a  newspaper,  asking  for  tidings  of  '  one  Albert  Gal- 
latin,'  and  adding,  that  if  he  were  still  living,  he  might,  on 
making  a  certain  application,  hear  of  something  to  his  advan- 
tage." 

So  much  for  the  story,  which  may  be  true  or  not.  It  is 
highly  probable.  And  yet,  it  will  be  remembered — that  the 
hardihood  of  our  traveller  may  be  the  better  understood — 
that  Mr.  Albert  Gallatin  has  the  reputation  of  being  one  of 
our  most  celebrated  economists— a  statesman  highly  distin- 
guished for  his  acumen  and  frequently  employed; — an  eth- 
nologist of  no  mean  reputation.  It  was  left  for  Miss  Marti- 
neau,  in  spite  of  the  "obscur'ty  of  country  life  in  the  United 
States," — which  is  peculiarly  the  nation  of  great  distances, — 
to  find  out  all  the  distinguished  men,  and  to  hear  all  the  argu- 
-  merits  that  were  worth  hearing-.  The  "  charm  "  of  her  trum- 
pet, however,  being  taken  into  consideration,  some  of  the 
difficulties  of  the  achievement  were,  no  doubt,  readily  over- 
come. 

A  little  proem  taken  from  a  paper  in  the  Edinburgh  Review^ 
furnishes  the  text  for  a  portion  of  .her  preface.  This  text 
dilates,  though  summarily,  upon  the  folly  and  impertinence 
of  any  traveller  assuming,  by  a  brief  race  through  a  neighbor- 
ing country,  to  generalize,  for  the  people  thereof,  from  his 
own  partial  and  hasty  observations.  Miss  Martineau,  with  an 
air  of  no  little  humility  at  first,  acknowledges  the  force  of  this 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  191 

paragraph ;  and  is  almost  resolved,  as  she  felt  the  reasonable- 
ness of  its  suggestions,  to  say  nothing  "in  print  on  the  condi- 
tion of  society  in  the  United  States."  But  she  does  not  keep 
in  this  mind  long.  Indeed,  how  could  she,  in  utter  disregard 
of  the  leading  habit  of  her  life?  To  quote  the  paragraph, 
was  only  to  serve  its  suggestions,  as  she  does  so  many  con- 
versational ninepins  which  she  sets  up,  here  and  there, 
throughout  her  two  volumes,  simply  to  show  how  well  she 
can  bowl  them  down.  This  is  her  obvious  purpose  in  making 
the  quotation  ;  and  she  concludes  not  to  mind  its  arguments, 
but  to  print  and  generalize,  for  good  or  for  evil  ;  contenting 
"f  herself  with  saying,  most  illogically,  in  defence  of  her  resolve, 
that  ''  men  will  never  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  each  pther,  if 
those  who  have  the  power  of  foreign  observation  refuse  to  re- 
late what  they  think  they  have  learned  ;  or  even  to  lay  before 
others  the  materials  from  which  they  themselves  hesitate  to 
construct  a  theory,  or  draw  large  conclusions." 

Xo  wonder  error  should  breed  so  fast,  and  attain  a  growth 
so  vigorous,  when  this  sort  of  morals  is  to  be  inculcated.  "  I  am 
not  sure,"  says  our  author,  "  that  what  I  tell  you  is  the  truth, 
but  never  mind,  it  looks  sufficiently  like  the  truth  for  all  com- 
mon purposes,  and  with  my  dressing ;  and  better  that  than 
nothing.  If  we  scruple  to  say  what  we  conjecture,  we  should 
perhaps  know  but  little  of  each  other,  and  an  ingenious  con- 
jecture is  certainly  a  good  substitute  for  an  unknown  fact.  Be 
thankful,  with  Sancho,  and  look  not  the  gift  horse  too  narrow- 
ly in  the  mouth." 

.  This  is  the  gist  of  the  argument.     It  does  not  occur  to  the 

good  lady  that  the  task  of  unlearning  the  error  is  perhaps  one 
of  the  greatest  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  progress  to  the 
truth.  But  allowing  all  the  credit  claimed  for  her  reasoning, 
it  could  only  apply  to  a  region  of  which  there  is  no  means  to 
acquire  better  information.  In  regard  to  the  United  States, 


192  ,.  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

of  which  the  people  of  Great  Britain  have  it  in  their  power  to 
know  so  much  ;  to  which  their  travellers  crowd  daily  ;  of  which 
'they  publish  accounts  daily ;  with  which  their  intercourse,  of 
the  most  imposing  and  valuable  kind,  is  constant,  absorbing, 
and  hourly  increasing,  the  suggestion  is  a  mere  absurdity- 
The  good  lady  knew  of  this  intimate  relation  quite  as  well  as 
any  body  else  ;  but  she  had  a  policy  in  forestalling  the  opin- 
ions and  inferences  of  others.  It  belonged  to  her  philosophy 
that  she  should  furnish  the  guide  points  and  the  clues  to  the 
traveller;  that  she  should  shape  his  facts  and  construct  his 
philosophies  ;  and  this,  not  because  she  desired  the  perversion 
of  the  truth,  but  that  she  was  sworn  to  the  progress  of  a  theo- 
ry which  served  all  the  purposes  of  a  perfect  truth  to  her. 

The  same  preface  afibrJs  us  another  marvellous  statement, 
in  regard  to  the  condition  of  Miss  Martineau's  mind,  when  she 
proposed  to  visit  the  United  States.  To  those  who  know  the 
lady,  whether  from  her  writings  or  from  personal  intercourse, 
the  following  passage  will  seem  as  perfect  an  absurdity  as  any 
of  the  many  in  her  volumes.  She  tells  us  that  she  "  went 
Avith  a  mind,  she  believes,  as  nearly  as  possible  unprejudiced 
about  America ;  with  a  strong  disposition  to  admire  democra- 
tic institutions  ;  but  an  entire  ignorance  how  far  the  people  of 
the  United  States  lived  up  to  or  fell  below,  their  own  theoiy. 
She  had  read  whatever  she  could  lay  hold  of  that  had  been 
written  about  them ;  but  was  unable  to  satisfy  herself  that, 
after  all,  she  understood  anything  whatever  of  their  condition. 
As  to  knowledge  of  them,  her  mind  was  nearly  a  blank  ;  as 
to  opinion  of  their  state,  she  did  not  carry  the  germ  of  one." 

If  this  be  the  truth,  Miss  Martineau  was  capable  of  far  more 
forbearance,  on  the  subject  of  the  United  States,  than  is  her 
usual  habit  on  most  other  subjects.  She  was  a  democrat  in 
England,  writing  incessantly  on  topics,  and  in  regard  to  insti- 
tutions and  objects,  which  necessarily  involved  a  close  conside- 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  193 

ration  of  a  region  which,  to  her  class,  conveyed  in  some  de- 
gree an  ideal  realm  of  security  and  happiness, — perfect  free- 
dom and  proper  philanthropy.  She  tells  us  that  she  liad 
read  all  that  she  could  lay  hands  on  in  relation  to  America, 
yet  had  learned  nothing.  Is  it  possible  that  such  was  the 
case  ;  that  the"  people  of  Great  Britain,  down  to  this  the  day 
of  her  writing,  had  left  themselves  so  utterly  uninformed  as 
to  a  people  with  whom  their  original  relations  were  so  inti- 
mate; with  whom  they  had  fought  two  bloody  wars;  with 
whom  they  carried  on  the  most  profitable  commercial  inter- 
course ?  Credut  Judceas  !  Miss  Martineau,  at  least,  could 
never  have  left  herself  thus  ignorant,  whatever  had  been  the 
indifference  of  her  people  upon  this  subject.  She  is  one  of 
those  coarse,  eager,  bold,  disputatious  persons,  strong  of  will, 
restless  in  search,  keen  and  persevering,  who  are  never  satis- 
fied with  themselves,  until  they  have  acquired  some  leading 
notions  upon  every  topic  to  which  their  minds  may  be  ad- 
dressed. She  will  store  her  memory  with  facts,  or  such  as 
she  deems  so,  drawn  from  no  matter  what  quarter,  and.  she 
will  brood  upon  these  facts  until  she  shapes  and  resolves  them 
all  into  tributary  groups  for  the  maintenance  of  whatsoever 
view  of  the  case  may  have  obtained  predominance  in  her  mind. 
She  has  formed  a  habit  of  speculating  as  she  goes, — a  very 
good  habit,  if  her  mind  were  not  always  subject  to  a  bias, — 
and  with  this  habit  she  has  formed  another,  a  far  less  valua- 
ble one,  of  declaiming  her  philosophies  aloud,  as  fast  as  they 
accumulate  in  her  thought.  Nothing  escapes  her  tongue, 
however  much  avoids  her  ear.  No  subject  is  felt  too  great, 
none  proves  too  little,  for  her  scrutiny.  She  shrinks  from 
neither  extreme.  The  shallows  and  the  deeps,  alike,  form  her 
elements,  though  she  shows  herself  ludicrously  striving  to 
dive  in  the  one,  and  to  wade  upright  in  the  other.  To  those 
who,  not  caring  either  to  wade  or  dive  in  such  waters,  will 
17 


194  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

content  themselves  with  simply  glancing  at  the  ambitious 
heads  of  her  chapters,  her  sections,  and  her  subdivisions,  the 
surprise  will  be  unqualified  at  her  universality.  The  distich 
occurs  naturally  as  you  read — 

"  Still  the  wonder  grows, 
That  one  small  head  can  carry  all  she  knows" 

While  other  travellers,  rating  themselves  modestly,  are  sat- 
isfied usually  to  relate  only  what  they  see  and  hear,  and  only 
now  and  then  to  dilate  upon  some  single  topic,  with  which 
they  assume  to  be  particularly  acquainted  ;  our  author,  with  a 
surprising  capacity,  and  a  boldness  rather  remarkable  than 
attractive,  theorizes  upon  all.  "Politics,"  "the  apparatus  of 
government,"  "  the  morals  of  politics,"  "  public  and  private 
economy,"  "agriculture,"  "internal  improvements,"  "manu- 
factures," "  commerce,"  "  morals  of  economy,"  "  civilization," 
"honor,"  "woman,"  "children,"  "sufferers,"  "utterance," 
"religion," — "its  science,  its  spirit,  and  its  administration" — 
these  are  the  heads  under  which  come  up  a  thousand  specifi- 
cations and  subdivisions,  upon  all  of  which  she  is  equally 
copious,  bold  and  dogmatical.  How  far  she  may  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  United  States  before  she  came  to  this  country, 
and  how  utterly  opinionless  she  was  thereon, — though  read- 
ing every  book  she  could  lay  hold  of,  which  treated  of  the 
subject, — I  will  not  pretend  to  determine.  Certain  it  is,  she 
has  been  anything  but  slow  in  forming  opinions  since  her 
visit.  Her  knowledge  of  the  subject  is  another  matter ;  and, 
after  all  her  journeys  and  essays,  I  am  prepared  to  give  her 
credit  for  as  little  real  information,  in  regard  to  America,  as  at 
the  moment  of  her  disembarcation  upon  our  shores.  But  the 
want  of  knowledge  in  her  case  implies  no  want  of  speech. 
Her  readiness  to  discuss  the  theme  of  which  she  hears  for  the 
first  time,  reminds  us  of  the  happy  declaration,  a  few  years 
ago,  by  a  member  of  Congress,  whose  confession,  like  that  of 


THE    MORALS    OF   SLAVERY.  195 

Miss  Martineau,  should  have  prepared  us  for  any  other  course. 
"  Mr.  Speaker,"  he  said  naively,  "  I  know  nothing  of  the  sub- 
ject under  discussion,  but  I  intend  to  go  on  argufying  it,  until 
I  1'arn  all  the  necessary  knowledge,"  &c. 

Miss  Martineau  argues,  no  doubt,  with  the  same  hope, 
though  it  is  clear  that  her  progress  is  not  exactly  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  desired  result.  I  do  not  doubt  her  real  igno- 
rance of  the  subject  of  America,  for  the  simple  reason  that  all 
the  facts  in  the  world  will  not  avail  to  make  a  simple  truth, 
in  the  case  of  one  who  perverts  them  to  the  maintenance  of 
a  prejudice.  As  to  the  pass-iveness  of  her  mind,  in  the  forma- 
tion of  opinions  touching  this  countiy,  prior  to  her  visit,  we 
may  be  permitted  to  doubt  a  little.  She  deceived  herself,  I 
am  very  sure,  as  most  English  travellers  do,  on  the  subject  of 
this  disr  assionateness.  The  Halls',  Hamilton's,  Trollope's,  et 
id  ornne  genus,  all  allege  the  same  grateful  impartiality;  nay, 
the  greater  number  of  them  insist,  with  Miss  Martineau,  upon 
their  absolutely  democratic  tendencies;  as  if  any  well  educated 
Englishman  could  be  a  democrat,  in  the  vulgar  sense  of  the 
term,  and  at  the  same  time  an  honest  man.  But  the  word 
democrat,  with  the  modern  Englishman — I  am  not  now 
speaking  of  the  Chartists — has  really  no  signification  more 
profound  than  was  implied  in  the  old  word  Dissenter.  Their 
notion  of  it  implied  no  revolution — no  absolute  change,  per- 
haps,— nothing  more  than  a  modification  of  existing  condi- 
tions,— with  a  more  indulgent  recognition  on  the  part  of  those 
in  power,  of  the  great  merits  of  many,  who  sat  in  the  king's 
porch,  upon  anxious  benches — waiters  upon  providence,  in 
better  phrase.  But  American  democracy  was  an  argument 
in  the  mouths  of  these  good  people,  since  it  is  sometimes  ne- 
cessary to  appeal  to  the  apprehensions,  as  well  as  the  wisdom, 
of  men  in  power.  For  this  reason,  American  democracy  had 
to  be  studied,  and,  if  possible,  understood.  A  similar  neces- 


196  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

sity  existed  in  France,  and  that  gave  us  De  Tocqueville.  Miss 
Martineau,  possibly,  had  some  design  of  doing  for  England,  in 
this  respect,  what  the  former  had  done  for  France.  She  might 
well  fancy  that  there  was  some  special  call  upon  her  to  do 
this  work.  As  a  democrat  after  the  English  fashion — nay, 
something  more, — as  a  perfect  leveller,  for  the  time,  in  Eng- 
land, the  government  and  institutions  of  the  United  States 
(Slavery  always  excepted)  might  well  loom  up  before  her  ima- 
gination in  beautiful  contrast  with  those  of  her  own  govern- 
ment. Our  theories  more  completely  harmonized  with  her 
own, — nay,  most  probably  helped  to  originate  them.  She 
could  not,  accordingly,  by  any  possibility,  have  escaped  the 
formation  of  a  large  body  of  opinions  in  relation  to  our  peo- 
ple, society,  and  institutions ;  and  that  she  had  formed  such 
opinions,  and  very  decisive  ones,  too,  in  respect  to  them,  is 
everywhere  apparent  in  these  volumes.  It  is,  indeed,  from 
opinions  thus  previously  formed,  upon  imperfect  data,  or  facts 
vitiated  by  her  anomalous  theories,  that  most  of  her  errors 
have  arisen.  Her  notions  of  democracy,  for  example,  lead 
her  constantly  to  overlook  the  fact,  that,  whatever  may  be  our 
abstractions  or  her  own,  we  have  a  limited  and  restraining 
charter — a  constitutional  compact — which  overrules  and  over- 
rides, or  should  do  so,  every  enactment  of  Congress  and  the 
laws.  This  fact  is  continually  conflicting,  in  its  operations, 
with  the  cherished  idea  in  her  head.  Of  course,  whenever 
this  happens,  we  fall  short  of  our  theories — our  plan  is  defec- 
tive— the  charter  is  anomalous — the  people  are  corrupt.  The 
ideal  of  the  good  lady  furnishes  the  only  correct  standard. 

On  the  subject  of  Slavery  in  America,  her  detestation  is 
avowed  as  having  been  entertained  long  before  she  entered 
the  fclave  States.  It  was  entertained  long  before  she  left  Eng- 
land ;  and  very  naturally  so.  The  subject,  from  the  labors  of 
Clarkson  and  others,  had  been  the  philanthropic  hobby  of  the 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  197 

British  government  and  people  for  many  years  past.  The  wisest 
among  their  statesmen  doubted  of  the  wisdom  of  this  ;  and  the 
number  of  doubters  among  their  wise  men,  increases  daily,  as 
the  results  of  the  emancipation  experiment  declare  them- 
selves. But,  for  a  considerable  period,  it  was  the  favorite  sub- 
ject of  British  declamation;  that  which  cant  most  delighted  to 
indulge  in,  and  to  which  national  vanity  was  most  pleased  to 
listen.  The  insane  and  cruel  act  which  set  free  the  slaves  of 
the  British  West  Indies,  to  the  ruin  of  that  region  as  well  as 
themselves,  was  one  of  those  tremendous  acts  of  legislation, 
by  which  pride  and  vanity  rear  themselves  monuments ;  but, 
too  frequently,  at  the  expense  of  their  country.  Abolition, 
naturally,  under  the  sanction  of  such,  an  act,  became  the  na- 
tional cry,  the  popular  watch-word,  the  subject  upon  which 
every  wtll-fed  British  subject  felt  himself  entitled  to  expatiate. 
The  habit  was  prescriptive.  There  was  no  opinion  in  the 
matter.  It  was  the  result  of  no  thought,  no  examination  of 
the  subject.  It  was  simply  the  embodiment  of  a  self-glorify- 
ing phrase,  uttered  and  uttered  falsely  long  before,  which  pro- 
claimed that  the  chains  fell  from  the  limbs  of  the  slave  the 
moment  that  he  touched  the  soil  of  Britain ;  and  this,  while 
Britain  was  planting  African  Slavery  in  America,  and  subject- 
ing the  free-born  chiefs  and  people  of  the  East  to  war,  havoc, 
spoliation,  and  the  most  cruel  bondage.  Verily,  the  only 
monument  which  truth  and  the  future  will  rear  to  the  atro- 
cious hypocrisy  of  such  an  act  of  grace  as  the  emancipation  of 
the  West  India  negroes,  must  be  that  "  whited  sepulchre," 
which,  in  Scripture  language,  is  made  to  illustrate  that  shame- 
less looking  up,  and  challenging  the  praise  of  heaven,  while 
doing  the  work  of  hell ! 

It  belonged  to  the  generally  levelling  tendencies  of  Miss 
Martineau's  character  that  she  should  be  hostile  to  the  insti- 
tution of  Negro  Slavery  without  regard  to  its   facts.     She 
17* 


198  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

shared  the  prejudices  of  her  times  and  country,  and,  though 
a  strong-minded  woman  in  many  respects,  it  suited  too  well 
with  her  usual  modes  of  thinking,  to  set  aside  the  national 
prejudices,  and,  looking  behind  the  mere  name  of  odium, 
which  attached  to  the  institution,  to  inquire  into  its  substan- 
tial working  and  results,  by  which,  alone,  the  moral  uses  and 
propriety  of  any  institution  could  be  determined.  Had  it  not 
been  for  this  name  of  odium,  and  that  Slavery  had  been 
assimilated  with  those  features  of  government  policy  which  it 
was  her  cue  to  obliterate,  we  shou'd  have  seen  her,  as  we 
have  in  latter  days  seen  Carlyle,  boldly  looking  through  all 
the  mists  and  mystifications  of  the  subject,  and  probing  it 
with  an  independent  analysis,  with  which  neither  prescription, 
nor  prejudices,  nor  selfish  policy,  could  be  permitted  to  inter- 
fere. Her  self-relying  nature  would  have  sufficed  for  this, 
had  she  not  determined  against  Slavery,  before  acquiring  any 
just  knowledge  of  that  condition  which  has  received  this 
name.  On  this  topic,  at  least,  her  sentiments  were  decided 
long  before  she  left  Europe.  When  she  reached  New-Eng- 
land, the  brotherly  love  of  that  region  served  to  heighten 
this  detestation,  which  thenceforward  became  so  cordial,  that 
all  things  and  thoughts,  whatever  she  saw  or  heard,  only  gave 
it  added  aliment.  It  was  fed,  we  are  not  sorry  to  add,  in 
most  cases,  at  the  previous  sacrifice  of  truth.  I  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  Miss  Martineau  wilfully  related  falsehoods,  or 
willingly  adopted  them.  Far  from  it.  I  must  do  her  the 
justice  to  say  that  I  regard  her  volumes,  as  written  through- 
out in  good  faith,  and  with  a  mind  of  the  most  perfect  integ- 
rity ;  so  far  as  integrity  may  be  predicated  cf  a  mind  in  a 
condition  only  of  partial  sanity.  But  on  the  one  subject  she  is 
a  monomaniac,  with  all  the  wonderful  ingenuity,  to  pervert 
the  truth,  and  shape  the  fanciful  to  her  purposes,  which  marks 
the  nature  of  the  monomaniac.  Biassed  and  bigoted  to  the 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  199 

last  degree  on  the  subject  of  Slavery,  she  could  neither  believe 
the  truth,  when  it  spoke  in  behalf  of  the  slaveholder,  nor  ques- 
tion the  falsehood,  however  gross,  when  it  fell  from  the  lips  of 
the  abolitionist.  The  morbid  quality  in  her  mind  effectually 
impaired  her  ordinary  capacity,  strong  in  most  other  respects, 
to  observe  and  judge  with  vigilance  and  sagacity.  Thus,  for 
example,  in  proof  not  less  of  this  bias,  than  of  its  demorali- 
zing influence  upon  her  mind,  we  are  told  that  the  abolition- 
ists sent  no  incendiary  tracts  among  the  slaves,  and  that  they 
use  no  direct  means  towards  promoting  their  objects  in  the 
slave  States.  "  It  is  wholly  untrue  that  they  insinuate  their 
publications  into  the  South."  Such  is  her  bold  assertion ; 
yet,  "  Mr.  Madison  made  the  charge,  so  did  Mr.  Clay,  so  did 
every  slaveholder  and  merchant  with  whom  I  conversed.  I 
chose  afterwards  to  hear  the  other  side  of  the  whole  question  ; 
and  I  found,  to  my  amazement,  that  this  charge  was  wholly 
groundless."  Here  the  lady  undertakes  to  decide  a  question 
of  veracity,  with  singular  composure,  in  favor  of  her  friends, 
and  at  the  expense  of  the  first  names  of  the  country.  Would 
Miss  Martineau  have  done  this,  and  that  too  in  the  assertion 
of  a  negative,  if  she  were  in  full  possession  of  her  wits  ?  But, 
so  far  from  the  denial  being  valid,  "  of  the  other  side,"  the 
matter  is  one  of  public  notoriety  throughout  the  country  ; 
leading,  in  some  cases,  to  demonstrations,  which  were  beyond- 
question  the  gutting  of  post-offices,  filled  with  incendiary 
documents,  and  public  bonfires  of  their  contents  in  the  streets 
of  large  cities. 

"  Nor  did  it  occur  to  me,"  she  writes,  "  that,  as  slaves  can- 
not read."  &c. 

This  is  one  of  her  assertions,  her  facts,  which  is  as  noto- 
riously false  as  her  previous  statement.  Thousands  of  negro 
slaves  do  read,  as  any  body  may  see  who  has  ever  visited  the 
cities  of  the  South ;  but,  the  slaveholders  allege — though  the 


200  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

abolitionists  may  deny — that,  lest  the  slave  should  labor 
under  this  disability,  and  for  the  better  conveying  the  lesson 
to  the  thousands  that  do  read,  gross  cuts  fire  employed  in  these 
abolition  newspapers,  and  are  even  stamped  upon  manufac- 
tured cottons,  of  the  kind  usually  furnished  for  negro  con- 
sumption, and  insinuated,  here  and  there,  at  decent  intervals, 
among  the  bales  designed  for  the  Southern  market.  Such 
bales  were  laid  bare  to  public  examination,  in  the  city  of 
Charleston,  but  a  few  years  before  the  visit  of  MissMartineau. 
She  might  have  obtained  ample  evidence  from  New-England 
authority,  on  this  point,  had  she  desired  it,  when  in  that  city. 
"  Slavery,"  says  our  author,  "  of  a  very  mild  kind,  has 
been  abolished  in  the  northern  parts  of  the  Union."  What 
knowledge  had  Miss  Martineau,  except  from  interested  par- 
ties, by  which  to  enable  her  to  pronounce  so  authoritatively 
upon  the  character  of  the  institution  at  the  North  ?  Slavery, 
properly  speaking,  never  was  abolished  at  all,  in  any  of  the 
States  where  it  originally  obtained.  It  simply  died  out, 
•when  it  ceased  to  be  profitable.  In  some  of  the  States,  no 
formal  enactment  was  necessary ;  and  we  believe  it  is  only 
within  five  years  that  Massachusetts  placed  any  such  decree 
among  her  statutes ;  if,  indeed,  she  has  yet  done  so.  The 
New-England  States  were  never,  to  any  great  extent,  slave- 
holding  ;  their  virtues  were  chiefly  exercised  in  slave-selling. 
To  New-England  and  Old  England,  the  South  almost  wholly 
owes  her  slaves.  They  stole  the  African  from  his  native  land, 
and  bartered  him  away,  without  a  care  what  became  of  him 
afterwards ;  their  philanthropy  by  no  means  disquieted  at  the 
reflection  that  he  might  fall  into  the  hands  of  those  who 
might  brutally  entreat  him — a  people,  not  like  themselves, 
proverbially  God-fearing  and  men-loving.  They  kept  but 
few  of  their  captives  among  themselves,  and  those  only  who 
were  least  saleable.  It  was  not  profitable  to  use  negro  labor  in 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  201 

the  cold  and  sterile  regions  of  New-England  ;  nor  did  any  act  of 
abolition,  when  it  did  occur,  help  many  of  the  slaves  of  that 
country.  The  great  bulk  of  their  negroes  were  sold  to  the 
South  long  before  it  could  go  into  operation.  Few  were  suf- 
fered to  remain  to  taste  its  benefits  (?)  except  the  infirm,  and 
here  and  there  an  old  servant  of  some  wealthy  family,  who 
could  very  well  afford  to  give  him  that  liberty  which  the 
dependent  rarely  sought  to  assert.  This  is  the  true  history 
of  Slavery  in  New-England.  We  may  add — what  may  be 
new  to  our  British  philanthropists — that  it  was  from  the 
Southern  colonies  that  the  prayer  was  first  heard  to  arise,  to 
the  British  Parliament,  to  arrest  the  further  traffic  in,  and 
importation  of,  slaves ;  a  prayer  to  which  the  mother  country 
turned  a  deaf  ear  always.  New-England  continued  to  steal 
and  sell  the  property  which  she  did  not  care  to  keep,  and  for 
which  she  now  refuses  all  warranty.  She  would  still  continue 
to  do  so,  if  she  could.  Her  ships  still  continue  the  trade  at  the 
perils  of  piracy.  The  South  gave  up  one  of  its  best  securities 
against  New-England  morals  when  it  assented  to  the  abolition 
of  the  slave  trade.  But,  to  proceed  with  our  author. 

It  is  one  part  of  the  policy  of  the  abolitionists  to  urge  the 
continual  insecurity  which  attends  the  condition  of  the  slave- 
holder ;  to  show  that  he  sleeps  upon  the  pillow  of  fear,  and 
that  his  own  convictions  forever  prompt  the  dread  of  ven- 
geance at  the  hands  of  his  serviles.  There  is  an  argument 
to  be  deduced  from  this  apprehension,  if  it  could  be  shown  to 
exist,  since  any  human  institution,  thus  guarded  by  terror, 
would  seem  to  be  in  conflict  with  the  design  and  decree  of 
Providence.  The  condition  would  seem  an  unnatural  one, 
and  the  moral  which  might  be  drawn  from  it  would  appear 
to  be  fatal  to  its  propriety.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  assumption  ; 
and  it  is  one  which  we  should  by  no  means  deny,  if  the  dan- 
ger arose  from  the  natural  movements  of  the  servile  mind, 


202  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

and  were  not  instigated  from  without.  But,  without  engag- 
ing in  the  discussion  of  this  principle,  it  is  enough  that  we 
join  issue  with  our  enemies  upon  the  fact.  Miss  Martineau 
contributes,  in  a  small  way,  to  this  portion  of  the  subject,  by 
retailing  a  number  of  petty  anecdotes ; — some  ludicrous 
enough,  and  others  merely  foolish  and  vicious  without  being 
ludicrous,  to  show  the  feeling  of  insecurity  of  the  whites  of 
the  South,  and  their  dread  of  the  negro  population.  I  quote 
a  single  paragraph,  by  way  of  sample,  from  the  collection  of 
the  lady,  and  will  proceed  to  analyze  it,  in  order  to  show 
the  absurdity  of  the  statement.  In  doing  this,  it  will  be  seen 
how  singularly  obtuse  the  mind  may  become,  even  in  the 
case  of  one  so  generally  acute  as  Miss  Martineau,  when  it  is 
inveterate  in  the  pursuit  of  a  given  object,  and  held  in  bond- 
age to  a  controlling  prejudice. 

"  At  Charleston,  when  a  fire  breaks  out,  the  gentlemen  all 
go  home  on  the  ringing  of  the  alarm  bell ;  the  ladies  rise 
and  dress  themselves  and  their  children.  It  may  be  the 
signal  of  insurrection ;  and  the  fire  burns  on,  for  any  help 
the  citizens  give,  till  a  battalion  of  soldiers  marches  down  to 
put  it  out." 

Now,  I  take  it,  that,  in  any  city  in  the  world,  slave  or  free, 
the  gentleman  who  happens  to  be  absent  from  his  family 
when  the  fire-bell  rings,  will  be  apt  to  hurry  home  to  see  that 
all  is  safe,  and  to  quiet  the  alarm  of  his  wife  and  children — 
particularly,  indeed,  in  a  large  city,  where  it  is  not  so  easy,  at 
all  times,  to  determine  in  what  quarter  the  fire  rages.  It  may 
be  in  your  precincts,  or  in  mine,  but,  while  neither  of  us 
know,  we  had  better  both  depart  and  see.  There  is  nothing 
at  all  remarkable  in  such  a  proceeding,  let  it  occur  among 
men  in  any  city.  Were  they  not  to  do  so,  it  would  argue  a 
singular  degree  of  indifference  to  the  fate  of  objects  and  inter- 
ests, which,  in  every  community,  are  considered  sufficiently 


THE   MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  203 

precious.  There  is  surely  nothing  remarkable  in  the  fact,  nor 
is  it  peculiar  to  Charleston,  or  to  any  other  city  in  which  slaves 
are  held.  But,  in  a  city  that  is  largely  built  of  wood — which 
in  comparatively  recent  times  was  almost  wholly  built  of 
wood,  and  that  of  the  most  inflammable  kind  —the  resinous 
pine — where  a  fire  extends  with  amazing  rapidity,  and  where 
the  ravages  of  fire  have  been  alike  frequent  and  terrible, — it 
becomes  especially  necessary  that  the  gentlemen  should  not 
only  make  all  haste  in  getting  home,  but  that  the  lady  should 
be  equally  prompt  in  getting  her  children  and  other  jewels 
ready  for  rapid  flight.  All  this  would  seem  natural  enough, 
and  these  necessities  would  seem  sufficiently  justified  on  other 
grounds  than  those  of  Slavery.  "  But,"  says  Miss  Martineau, 
blindly  a*  well  as  deafly  blundering  into  speech,  which  a  single 
moment  of  reflection  would  have  made  her  quietly  avoid — 
"  The  fire  burns  on  for  any  help  the  citizens  give,  till  a  bat- 
talion of  soldiers  marches  down  to  put  it  out."  This  is  grave 
fooling  enough.  Who  are  the  soldiers  in  Charleston,  but  the 
citizens,  and  how  can  soldiers  extinguish  a  fire  ?  By  guns 
and  bayonets  ?  These  two  simple  questions,  had  the  lady 
allowed  herself  sufficient  time  for  inquiry,  would  have  saved 
her  from  the  emission  of  such  an  absurdity.  We  have 
none  but  a  citizen  soldiery  in  Charleston,  unless  you  regard 
the  hundred  and  fifty  cadets  at  the  military  academy  as  so 
many  regulars,  and  count  the  score  or  two  employees  at  the 
United  States  arsenal,  as  sufficient  guarantees  against  the 
negroes  in  time  of  fire  ;  but,  it  so  happens,  that  neither  of 
these  bodies  leave  their  separate  stations,  at  such  a  period,  or 
seek,  in  any  way,  the  scene  of  conflagration.  But  it  is  easy 
to  account  for  the  lady's  error.  She  had  got  hold  of  the  tail, 
rather  than  the  head  of  the  fact,  and  was  resolute  to  twist  it 
to  the  required  direction,  in  obedience  to  her  fixed  bias.  There 
is  just  truth  enough  in  her  story  for  the  purposes  of  false- 


204  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

hood;  but  even  this  slender  capital  was  too  imperfectly  under- 
stood by  our  author,  to  be  used  with  effect.  She  was  too 
ea^er  to  launch  her  shaft  at  the  slaveholders,  to  observe  that 

O  ' 

she  aimed  at  them  the  notched,  and  not  the  barbed,  extrem- 
ity. Let  us  explain.  There  is  an  arrangemnt  in  Charleston, 
by  which  a  certain  portion  of  the  city  militia — amounting 
probably  to  two  hundred  men, — is  required  to  appear  on 
parade  whenever  the  alarm  of  fire  is  given.  This  body  acts 
simply  as  a  military  police,  and  is  really  auxiliary  in  its  duties 
to  the  ordinary  city  police  and  watch.  It  did  originate,  we 
believe,  at  the  period  of  the  anticipated  negro  insurrection 
in  Charleston,  in  1822;  an  affair  which,  we  are  disposed  to 
think,  stands  quite  alone  in  the  domestic  history  of  that  place, 
and  the  scheme  of  which  originated  in  an  imported  mulatto. 
But  the  original  cause  for  the  creation  of  this  military  police 
is  no  longer  recognized  as  the  necessity  for  its  continuance.  It 
has  other  uses.  It  preserves  public  order,  which  is  always 
liable  to  disturbance  on  occasions  of  fire,  and  protects  the 
property  which  has  been  rescued  from  the  flames.  So  little 
is  the  popular  apprehension  of  the  slaves,  that,  of  fifteen  or 
twenty  fire  engines  owned  by  the  city,  a  large  number  of 
these  is  entirely  worked  by  negroes.  Those  who  have  seen 
their  excitement  on  occasions  of  public  duty,  have  heard  the 
Babel-like  uproar  of  their  conflicting  tongues,  their  shouts, 
cries,  clamor,  and  peculiar  eloquence,  would  be  very  apt  to 
suppose  that  they  had  never  been  taught  the  first  lesson  in 
subordination.*  Certainly  no  one  would  suppose  that  they 

*  These  facts  were  true  when  this  pamphlet  was  originally  written. 
There  may  be  some  alteration  in  the  present  arrangement,  with 
which  the  writer  is  less  familiar;  at  that  date,  the  fire  system  in 
Charleston  was  supposed  to  be  particularly  complete.  The  city  had 
so  frequently  and  fearfully  suffered,  that  improvement  in  the  system, 
and  refinement  upon  it,  was  inevitable.  The  citizen  soldiery,  we 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  205 

entertained  any  lurking  jealousies  or  suspicions  of  their  mas- 
ters, or  stood  on  such  doubtful  terms  with  them  as  might,  by 
possibility,  require  sharp  application  from  the  bayonets  of  the 
guard  on  duty.  A  sudden  shower  from  the  engines  would 
be  more  calculated  to  arouse  their  terror,  and  would  be  the 
most  obvious  resort  of  the  firemen,  in  the  event  of  their 
subordinates  showing  themselves  lazy  or  unruly — the  former 
exhibition  being  by  far  the  most  likely  of  the  two. 

But,  even  did  there  exist  among  the  people  of  Charleston 
and  the  South  generally,  an  apprehension  of  mutiny  and 
revolt  among  their  serviles,  to  what  would  it  amount  ?  What 
would  it  prove?  What  argument  would  Miss  Martineau  and 
the  abolitionist  brethren  draw  from  the  fact  ?  That  the  slave 
is  a  discontent.  That  the  superior  authority  anticipates  trou- 
ble and  prepares  for  strife  !  Suppose  we  grant  it,  and  in  what 
then  does  our  condition  as  a  community,  and  our  relations 
with  our  slaves,  differ  from  that  of  any  European  people  ? 
Why  are  there  standing  armies  in  all  the  states  of  Europe  \ 
Why  do  grim  sentries  environ  the  highways,  the  posts,  sta- 
tions, railway  trains,  public  walks  ?  Why  do  the  citadels 

need  not  say,  do  nothing  towards  extinguishing  the  fire,  as  the  dear 
old  lady  states.  That  is  left  to  well-drilled  companies — hose,  and 
axe  and  engine.  The  city  watch  consists  of  about  100  men.  This,  to 
a  population  of  44,000,  is  moderate  enough  ;  and,  during  a  fire,  would 
be  of  small  value  in  preserving  order.  'I  he  fire  guard,  in  brief,  is  an 
auxiliary  police.  The  detachment  is  relieved  every  three  months. 
Their  duty,  as  stated  in  the  text,  is  chiefly  to  receive  and  protect  the 
rescued  goods,  and  to  preserve  order;  since  fires  are  most  commonly 
the  work  of  incendiaries,  who  avail  themselves  of  the  public  alarm  to 
plunder.  Nor  is  this  the  only  respect  in  which  the  fire  police  in 
Charleston  is  superior  There  is  a  salaried  officer, — an  engineer — who, 
with  certain  assistants,  is  required  to  appear  at  every  fire,  properly 
provided  with  powder  made  up  into  certain  ibrms,  and  with  the  neces- 
sary clievaux-de-frise,  for  blowing  up  houses — not  negroes  ! — in  order  to 
the  more  summary  arresting  of  the  conflagration  by  making  a  vacuum. 
18 


206  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

look  down  with  grinning  muzzles  upon  the  streets  of  the 
peaceful  city  \  Why  is  the  simple  traveller,  the  single  man, 
compelled  to  carry  his  passport,  and  get  it  vised  at  every 
stage  iu  his  journey — nay,  why  is  he  denied  to  journey  in  cer- 
tain of  the  states  of  Europe  at  all  ?  Why  are  the  walks  of 
the  great  city  garrisoned  with  spies  to  report  the  sayings  and 
doings  of  the  populace  ?  Why  does  England  growl  at  the 
bare  mention  of  Ireland,  and  present  her  bayonets,  if  she  but 
stirs,  in  her  stagnating  sleep  ?  And  why  does  France  burden 
herself  with  the  support  of  half  a  million  of  armed  men  \ 
Why  does  Russia  the  same  ?  Why  is  Austria  only  a  great 
camp  ?  Why  does  New-York  call  out  its  militia  to  support 
the  sheriff  and  collect  the  rents  of  the  Patroon — and  unavail- 
ing^ ?  But  why  multiply  the  questions  which  can  have  but 
one  answer  2  It  is  because  authority  every  where  dreads  the 
revolt  of  the  impatient,  toiling,  vexed,  weary  and  ignorant 
inferiority — because,  slavish  and  superstitious,  anxious  to  luxu- 
riate in  ibrdidden  pleasures  ;  loathing  the  decreed  toils  which 
are  wholesome  ;  envious  of  the  wealth  which  they  have  not 
patience  to  wait  for,  or  virtue  to  forbear  to  crave, — they  would 
have  the  day's  pay  without  doing  the  day's  work,  and  long  to 
vote  themselves  ease  and  affluence  out  of  the  possessions  of 
the  wealthier  classes.  That  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States  should  adopt  some  precautions — some  regulations,  by 
•which  to  make  their  repose  .secure — is  only  what  is  done  in 
Europe,  at  greater  expense, — in  more  imposing  array, — with 
greater  ostentation  of  men  and  weapons.  It  is  absolutely 
absurd  to  speak  of  such  police  regulations  as  prevail  in  Caro- 
lina, as  of  any  significance  at  all,  when  we  consider  the  pre- 
cautions of  the  same  sort  which  distinguish  every  state  in 
Europe  ;  but,  when  we  add,  that  the  civil  and  military  police 
of  South-Carolina,  and  of  any  of  the  Southern  States,  bears 
no  such  proportion  to  the  total  of  the  population  as  occurs  in 


THE    MOKALS    OF    SLAVERY.  207 

the  states  and  cities  of  the  North,  we  may  quietly  suffer  this 
count  in  Miss  Martineau's  indictment  to  remain  without  more 
waste  of  words  in  answer.  The  police  of  Charleston  is  no- 
thing to  that  of  New- York,  making  a  due  relative  estimate  of 
the  two  populations  ;  yet,  in  the  former,  such  a  thing  as  a  riot 
is  never  heard  of.  There,  no  portion  of  the  population,  the 
blackest  and  the  poorest,  is  so  degraded  as  to  need  to  be  shot 
down  by  scores  for  the  maintenance  of  order  and  the  security 
of  society. 

In  the  chapter  devoted  to  "  Revenue  and  Expenditure,"  we 
are  told,  in  an  extraneous  sentence,  which  is  closed  with  a 
note  of  exclamation,  that  in  "  South-Carolina  there  is  a  tax 
on  free  people  of  color!"  Had  it  not  been  that  Miss  Mar- 
tineau  was  too  well  satisfied  with  the  surface  of  the  fact, 
she  vvoukl  have  inquired  farther ;  in  the  New-England  States 
she  certainly  would  have  done  so ;  but  it  was  quite  enough 
to  show  that  in  Carolina  a  special  poll  tax  was  levied  upon 
the  unhappy  free  negro.  Let  us  complete  the  fact,  and  pro- 
bably do  away  with  the  mystery  and  injustice,  by  stating  that 
the  same  free  person  of  color  enjoys  an  exemption  from 
militia,  from  patrol,  jury,  guard  and  other  duties,  and  is 
required  to  perform  no  military  service  in  time  of  war.  For 
such  exemption  the  white  mechanic  and  laborer — indeed, 
most  white  men — would  be  very  well  pleased  to  pay  ten  times 
the  amount  paid  by  the  free  negro  as  a  capitation  tax.  But, 
says  the  abolitionist,  these  duties  are  privileges,  and  the 
exemption  of  the  free  negro,  however  grateful  to  his  love  of 
ease,  is  still  in  the  nature  of  a  forfeiture.  Precisely  ;  but  it 
is  such  a  forfeiture  as  is  conceived  proper  to  his  natural  disa- 
bilities. Our  women  are  similarly  exempt.  The  system  with 
us,  whether  it  regards  the  free  negroes  or  the  slave,  gots  on 
the  assumption  that  he  belongs  to  an  inferior  race,  to  whom 
such  trusts,  where  the  rights  of  the  superipr  race  are  con- 


208  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERT. 

cerned,  would  be  improperly  confided.     I  shall  have  some- 
thing further  to  say  on  this  topic  in  another  place. 

In  the  remarks  of  our  author  upon  the  policy  and  institu- 
tions of  Carolina,  to  which  I  chiefly  confine  myself,  there 
are  numerous  other  points,  like  the  preceding,  involving  error, 
either  of  fact  or  inference,  which  might  be  exposed  with 
little  difficulty,  were  it  worth  my  while  to  pursue  such  small 
game.  But,  merely  to  multiply  instances,  when  a  few  can  be 
made  to  illustrate  the  whole,  would  trespass,  without  profita- 
ble result,  upon  the  time  of  the  reader.  All  these  blunders 
of  our  author  are  to  be  ascribed  to  the  one  cause — her  bias  on 
the  subject  of  Slavery.  This  bias  has  been  of  a  character  so 
tyrannical,  as  to  derange  her  intellect,  and  utterly  to  baffle 
her  reasoning  faculties,  the  moment  she  recurs  to  it.  She 
can  make  no  correct  observations,  or  exercise  any  proper  judg- 
ment, in  any  matter  with  which  this  subject  is  coupled,  how- 
ever remotely  or  incidentally.  To  those  who  think  for  them- 
selves, and  examine  honestly, — her  errors,  in  the  greater  num- 
ber of  cases,  as  in  those  we  have  instanced,  carry  their  refuta- 
tion on  the  face  of  them.  They  were  unavoidable  in  a  pro- 
gress such  as  hers,  and  could  not  but  occur  to  a  person  who, 
like  herself,  pursued  her  travels,  and  made  her  observations, 
with  regard  simply  to  a  support  of  her  theories.  What  one 
wills  to  see  is  readily  seen  ;  what  one  resolves  to  believe,  for 
that  he  will  find  sufficient  proofs  ;  and  that  which  already 
constitutes  a  controlling  faith  in  the  mind,  will  never  lack  for 
a,  cloud  of  witnesses.  Miss  Martineau  can  summon  any 
number.  The  vague  apprehensions-  of  women,  filled  with 
fears  and  suspicions  in  due  degree  with  their  ignorance,  are 
already  gravely  written  in  her  chronicles.  Her  informants  are 
frequently  Northern  women,  who  have  married  and  removed 
to  the  South.  If  not  readily  admitted  into  society,  they 
revenge  themselves  upon  it  by  their  slanders.  Such  persons 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  209 

are  always  anxious  to  got  away  from  a  region  where  they 
can  make  no  figure  ;  and  their  lives  are  wasted  in  envious 
repining*,  in  complainings  and  vaporings,  and  in  a  studied 
misconstruction  of  the  circumstances  in  which  they  live- 
•What  Miss  Marti nean  hears  of  the  fears  of  the  Southern 
people,  are  from  such  witnesses  ;  and  they  serve  her  in  stead 
on  all  occasions.  It  needs,  for  all  such  persons,  but  the  slen- 
derest support  of  fact,  to  justify  the  most  monstrous  revela- 
tions. These  charges  against  the  South,  drawn  from  such 
sources,  are  of  the  most  hotch-potch  character,  and,  of  what- 
ever sort,  they  are  fastened,  as  a  matter  of  course,  upon 
Slavery.  Of  the  rapes,  hangings,  burnings,  murders,  which 
have  happened  upon  the  Southern  border  for  fifty  years,  Miss 
Martineau  makes  a  grateful  collection,  and  licks  her  lips  over 
them  with  the  air  of  one  about  to  gratify  a  very  avid  appe- 
tite. She  records  many  of  which  the  people  of  the  South 
never  heard.  She  enters  into  no  such  statistics  at  the  North, — 
but  sets  out,  seemingly,  with  the  assumption  that  they  are  to 
be  looked  for  only  in  the  precincts  of  the  slaveholder.  She 
does  not  seem  to  have  asked  about  the  offences  against  good 
morals  in  New-York  and  Philadelphia,  or  the  quality  and 
color  of  the  offenders  in  those  cities.  If  she  hears  that  a  slave 
poisons  an  owner  in  Carolina,  though  this  event  may  occur 
once  in  a  hundred  years,  she  crows  over  it  lustily.  The  very 
instance  which  she  records  was  given  to  her  as  a  remarkable 
one,  yet  she  wilfully  assumes  it  to  be  a  common  occurrence, 
in  spite  of  its  notorious  isolation.  But  the  crimes  of  the  free 
negroes  at  the  North,  with  whose  condition  alone,  the  com- 
parison should  be  made  of  the  Southern  slave,  entirely  escape 
her  attention.  Crimes  and  atrocities  which  occur  in  all  com- 
munities, and  which  simply  indicate  the  bad  passions  and 
vicious  heart  of  the  criminal,  are  assumed  to  be  peculiar  to  the 
state  of  Slavery  ;  while,  the  truth  is,  the  South  is  confessedly 


210  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

the  region  of  all  the  United  States,  where  the  criminal  never 
prospers.     Compare  its  criminal  reports  with  those  that  reach 
us   daily  from    the    North.     How   many  women  are  cruelly 
murdered  in  the  Northern  cities — sometimes  by  priests,  some- 
times by   professors ;  by   merchants   and  merchants'  clerks. 
What  a  volume   of  depravity  was  unfolded  in  the  trial  of 
Robinson ;  and  there  was  the  case  of  Avery,  and  the  case  of 
Colt,  and  the  case  of  Webster — a  series  of  the  most  bloody, 
base,  cowardly  murders,  ar.d  all  for  money,  91-  to  get  rid  of  an 
importunate  creditor.     So  deliberately  done,  too,  the  crime — 
beguiling  the  creditor  to  the  shambles,  butchering  him  and 
cutting  him  up,  and  pickling  him,  and  packing  him  away,  in 
boxes,  coal  holes,  privies ;   decomposing  him   with  lime,  and 
acids  and  vitriol.     And   the  criminals  all  among  "  our  best 
citizens  !"     Of  course,  the  offender  mostly  escapes,  if  he  be 
not  poor.     If  he  be  poor,  he  goes  to  the  gallows  or  the  state 
prison.     The  finding  of  the  jury,  declaring  that  the  supposed 
murderer  is  not  guilty,  does  not  do  away  with  the  fact  that 
the  poor   victim,  man  or  woman,  is  murdered — nor  does  it 
diminish  the    aggravation  that  they  are   almost   invariably 
murdered  with  impunity.     The  newspapers  frequently  record 
forgeries  by  priests,  by  priests'  sons,  and  by  the  founders  of 
splendid  cities  ;  and  while  they  wonder  passingly  that  such 
good  people  should  turn   out  so  bad,  their  chief  regrets  are 
the  loss  of  such   enterprising  citizens  to  the  fine  cities   for 
which  they  did  so  much.     Alleged  rapes,  by  negroes  upon 
white  girls,   are  frequently  stated  by  Northern  journalists. 
We  refer  to  Mr.  Tappan  for  such  particulars  as  resulted  from 
the  examination  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  Magdalen  Asy- 
lum into  the  morals  of  New-York;  and  we  regret  that  Miss 
Martineau  had  not  looked  more  closely  into  the  negro  quar- 
ters, and  into  the  various  police  trials  of  negro  offenders  in 
the  different  cities  of  the  free  States.     Had  she  done  this,  she 


THE    MORALS    OF   SLAVERY.  211 

•would  Lave  spared  us  the  entire  chapter  on  the  morals  of 
Slavery.  Indeed,  had  she  as  narrowly  examined  the  brothels, 
and  the  stews,  and  the  alleys,  and  sinks  of  London — with  as 
keen  a  nostril  as  she  has  thrust  into  the  Southern  country, 
she  would  have  paused  before  taking  ship  for  the  New  World  ; 
and,  as  a  good  Christian,  would  have  addressed  herself  to  the 
augean  duty  of  cleansing  out  her  own  stables.  It  is  a  mod- 
ern British  statistician  who  tells  us  that,  in  London  alone, 
there  are  five  thousand  persons  who  will  cut  your  throat  for  a 
shilling.  But  why  linger  upon  that  royal  lazar-house  of  suf- 
fering, infamy  and  crime,  which  England  oriel's,  in  all  her 
recesses,  to  the  hopeless  inspection  of  the  philosopher.  We 
have  only  to  read  the  narratives  of  her  own  statesmen,  de- 
scriptive of  the  sable  horrors  of  the  collieries,  to  feel  that 
rebuke  from  Britain  is  the  saddest  and  stupidest  of  all  imper- 
tinences. It  is  to  take  a  harder  test,  for  trying  the  South, 
that  we  invite  the  comparison  with  the  free  States  of  our  own 
country.  Our  crimes  in  the  South  are  not  only  fewer,  but 
very  different  in  character  from  theirs.  With  us,  such  a 
thing  as  the  murder  of  a  woman  is  never  heard  of,  or  so  rare- 
ly as  to  make  the  event  a  marvel.  Our  men  engage  in  dead- 
ly combat  with  one  another — proud,  passionate  men,  filled 
with  mortified  ambition,  and  goaded  by  public  indignity. 
But  secret  murders  are  infrequent.  Throat-cutting  to  escape 
a  debt  or  dun,  is  not  among  our  chronicles  ;  you  never  hear, 
among  us,  of  infernal  machines  sent  into  a  family,  in  the  guise 
of  innocent  mahogany  cases,  to  explode  when  opened,  and 
blow  a  fearful  household  into  eternity.  But  why  pursue  the 
contrast  ?  It  is  one  that  every  day's  intelligence  only  serves 
to  heighten. 

The  antipathy  of  Miss  Martineau  to  the  slaveholder,  some- 
times results  in  an  amusing  exposure  of  her  absurd  injustice. 
Take  a  sample  or  two.  At  page  44,  vol.  i,  she  says : 


212  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

"  In  the  Senate,  the  people's  right  of  petition  is  invaded. 
Last  session,  it  was  ordained  that  all  petitions  and  memorials 
relating  to  a  particular  subject — Slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia — should  be  laid  on  the  table,  unread,  and  never 
recurred  to.  Of  course  the  people  will  not  long  submit  to 
this  !" 

Mark  how  her  tone  changes,  in  a  case  exactly  parallel — 
when  it  is  my  bull  which  has  gored  your  ox  !  At  page  "^0,  of 
the  same  volume,  we  find  a  similar  proceeding  of  Congress 
dismissed  with  a  complacency  quite  remarkable,  when  com- 
pared with  the  evident  indignation  of  the  preceding  para- 
graph. She  is  now  speaking  of  Carolina  nullification,  and 
the  violent  opposition  of  the  State  Rights  portion  of  the 
country  to  the  protective  policy  of  the  Eastern  States. 

"  Congress,"  says  she,  "  went  on  legislating  about  the  tariff 
without  regard  to  this  opposition;  and  the  protests  of  certain 
Stites,  against  their  proceedings,  were  quietly  laid  on  the 
table  as  impertinences  /" 

The  hatred  of  the  white  towards  the  colored  population  is 
a  subject  of  her  notice,  and  she  tells  an  anecdote,  of  which 
she  has  probably  heard  only  a  portion  of  the  particulars. 

''  Lafayette,"  says  she,  ''  on  his  last  visit  to  the  United  States, 
expressed  his  astonishment  at  the  increase  of  the  prejudice 
against  color.  He  remembered,  he  said,  how  the  black 
soldiers  used  to  mess  with  the  whites  in  the  revolutionary 
war." 

Had  Miss  Martineau  asked  the  particulars  of  this  change, 
which  she  should  have  done,  she  would  have  found  that  it 
was  a  change  altogether  confined  to  those  regions  where 
Slavery  had  been  done  away  with  !  The  black  soldiers  were 
employed,  as  such,  at  a  time  when  their  brethren  (arid  them- 
selves also,  probably)  were  slaves,  and  were  modestly  satisfied 
•with  their  condition  of  inferiority.  By  emancipation,  and  the 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  213 

pettings  of  philanthropy,  the  coarse  and  uneducated  negro  be- 
came lifted  into  a  condition  to  which  his  intellect  did  not  entitle 
him,  and  to  which  his  manners  were  unequal  ; — he  became 
presumptuous  accordingly,  and  consequently  offensive  ; — and 
the  whites,  who  could  have  tolerated  him  in  his  proper  and 
inferior  condition,  were  naturally  outraged  by  the  impudence  of 
the  creature  when  lifted  out  of  place.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he 
is  an  object  of  dislike  and  hatred  in  the  Northern  cities,  and 
with  good  reason.  lie  is  a  rival  without  being  an  equal ;  a 
competitor  without  like  responsibilities  with  those  to  whom  he 
opposes  himself.  He  is  presumptuous  in  due  degree  with  his 
sense  of  irresponsibility.  His  habits  of  idleness  increase  his 
presumption,  while  lessening  his  moral,  wretchedly  feeble 
from  the  first.  The  complaint  of  the  white  population  of  the 
North  is  always  to  this  effect.  The  blacks  do  not  labor  on 
the  same  terms  with  the  whites.  In  fact,  they  will  not  labor 
at  all  if  they  can  escape  it.  They  will  do  jobs,  do  light 
chores,  brush  boots,  go  on  errands,  sweep,  tinker,  and  thieve, — 
the  latter  upon  the  same  petty  scale  which  marks  all  their 
performances.  They  skulk  all  manly  and  honorable  toils, 
such  as  the  white  prefers,  boldly  undertakes,  and  vigorously 
performs.  The  black  still  seeks  the  position  of  the  menial, 
and  is  despised  accordingly  ;  in  that  position  he  is  easily  ren- 
dered impudent,  for  his  conceit  is  intolerable  when  at  large, 
like  that  of  a  monkey ;  when  impudent  he  grows  offensive, 
and  hence  hateful.  He  must  be  always  despicable  in  any 
community  which  leaves  him  at  liberty,  and  where  he  shrinks 
from  grappling  with  the  higher  toils  and  purposes  which 
alone  can  dignify  the  possession  of  freedom. 

The  case  is  far  otherwise  where  Negro  Slavery  exists.  In 
the  South,  the  negro  is  not  an  object  of  dislike  or  hatred. 
There,  he  never  ofiends  by  obtrusiveness  ;  he  occupies  his  true 
position,  and,  while  he  fills  it  modestly,  he  is  regarded  with 


214  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

favor,  nay,  respect  and  love,  and  is  treated  with  kindness  and 
affection.  And  this  would  be  the  result,  North  as  well  as 
South,  if  he  did  not  contend  for  an  equality  of  position  with  a 
people  to  whom  he  is  morally  and  physically  interior.  When 
he  does  this,  he  provokes  hatred  inevitably,  and  must  live  in  a 
condition  of  perpetual  insecurity.  If  his  moral  were  not  so 
glaringly  inferior  to  his  assumptions,  and  those  made  for  him, 
at  the  North,  he  would  be  torn  to  pieces  by  the  laboring 
classes  among  the  whites.  As  it  is,  he  frequently  incurs  this 
danger.  I  need  not  surely  refer  to  the  frequent  drubbings 
which  he  receives,  even  in  his  wigwam,  in  the  negro  quarters 
of  the  great  cities.  It  is  to  him  no  castle.  lie  is  sometimes 
torn  out  of  it,  neck  and  heels,  by  the  mob,  and  his  den  de- 
molished about  his  ears.  But,  when  these  tilings  take  place, 
our  benevolent  abolitionists  ascribe  the  outrage  to  the  influence 
of  the  slaveholders.  Listen  to  Miss  Martineau,  at  one  mo- 
ment, and  she  will  persuade  you  that  these  slaveholders  abso- 
lutely rule  the  Northern  cities  ;  that  their  influence  is  sovereign 
for  evil  every  where;  and  is  mortally  vexed  at  certain  friendly 
relations  between  Boston  and  Charleston,  of  which  cities  she 
deals  in  terms  not  less  insulting  to  their  communities  than 
complimentary  to  the  minds  by  which  they  are  supposed  to 
be  governed.  But,  a  moment  after,  she  forgets  the  prodigious 
influence  over  the  North  for  which  she  has  given  credit  to  the 
South,  and  then  tells  us,  that  the  latter  seeks  for  disunion 
because  she  is  without  influence.  She  then  treats  us  to  a 
stock  of  anecdotes,  showing  the  envy  and  hatred  of  the  latter 
towards  the  North,  because  of  this -deficiency.  Envy  of  the 
North  by  the  South  !  The  boot  is  on  the  other  leg,  perhaps. 
So  far  from  envy,  the  error  of  the  South  is  in  the  indulgence 
of  quite  too  complacent  an  estimate  of  its  own  resources. 
The  South  is  frequently  made  indignant  at  the  assumptions  of 
the  North,  resenting  frequent  injustice  and  wrong  which,  in 


THE    MORALS    OP   SLAVERY.  215 

other  countries,  would  be  called  rank  robbery  !  But  envy — 
never!  That  is  not  the  Southern  vice  or  weakness,  though  it 
may  have  many  vices  for  which  to  answer. 

I  could  multiply  extracts,  page  on  page,  to  show  the  heated, 
the  malignant  prejudices  which  darken  the  eyes,  and  baffle 
the  faculties  of  our  author  ; — but  of  what  use  ?  A  few  spe- 
cimens may  serve.  She  looks  at  all  things  in  our  country  as 
through  a  blackened  glass.  The  eyes  of  her  mind  are  jaun- 
diced— they  are  not  healthy — they  never  will  be  healthy, 
until  she  substitutes  Christianity  for  that  shrewd  sort  of  phi- 
losophy which  is  so  grateful  to  human  vanity,  and  which  so 
betrays  the  heart.  Her  eyes  need  the  helping  hand  of  that 
benign  occulist,  Truth  ;  and  truth  will  only  be  able  to  touch 
them  successfully,  when  she  has  first  had  them  well  washed 
by  that  gentle  handmaid,  whom  moralists  call  Humility.  As 
yet,  neither  of  them  can  do  any  thing  for  her  case.  Could 
she  enjoy  the  restoration  of  one  faculty,  by  the  forfeit  of 
another ; — could  she  recover  her  hearing  by  the  surrender  of 
her  speech  ; — there  might  be  hope  of  her.  Now,  she  is  too 
talkative  to  listen,  too  deaf  to  hear,  too  confident  of  herself 
to  learn,  even  should  Truth,  in  visible  embodiment,  descend 
divinely  to  become  her  teacher  !  But  let  us  proceed  with 
our  instances. 

"  When  to  all  this  is  added  that  tremendous  curse,  the 
possession  of  irresponsible  power  over  slaves,"  &c. 

There  is  no  such  irresponsibility  in  America.  Ordinarily, 
and  in  most  cases,  the  interests  of  the  owner  are  sufficient 
protection  for  the  slave.  It  is  his  policy  to  prolong  his  life,  to 
preserve  his  health,  to  promote  his  strength,  and  to  give  him 
contentment.  These  objects  imply  adequate  food  and  cloth- 
ing, indulgent  nurture,  moderate  tasks,  and,  as  much,  if  not 
more  leisure,  than  is  allotted  usually  to  the  laboring  classes  in 
any  country.  The  laws  protect  him  also — as  a  being  of  info- 


216  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

rior  caste,  it  is  true — but  they  do  protect  him,  in  correspon- 
dence with  what  is  the  obvious  policy  of  the  master.  He  is  as 
effectually  secured  against  wrong  and  murder  as  the  white  man, 
and  his  securities  are  as  unfrequently  outraged.  The  murder 
of  the  negro,  slave  or  free,  is  punished  with  death.  Wanton 
injuries  against  him  are  redressed  by  the  courts,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  white  man,  and  the  courts  will  entertain  an  action  for 
damages  for  an  assault  even  upon  his  character.  That  there 
will  be  instances  in  which  he  suffers  wrong,  blows,  brutalities 
and  loss  of  life,  are  undeniable  ;  but  these  risks  are  not  pecu- 
liar to  the  slave.  It  will  be  time  enough  to  ascribe  these 
offences  against  humanity,  to  the  institution  of  Slavery,  when 
it  is  shown  that  free  states  and  communities  enjoy  exemption 
from  them.  We  insist,  and  challenge  investigation,  that  the 
crimes  of  all  descriptions,  brutality,  murder  and  violence, 
occur  less  frequently  in  the  slave  than  in  the  free  States,  and 
that,  even  as  they  occur  in  the  slave  States,  the  negro  is  less 
frequently  the  sufferer  than  the  white  man. 

"A  planter,"  says  Miss  Martineau,  "stated  to  a  sugar 
refiner  in  New- York,  that  it  was  found  the  best  economy  to 
work  off  the  stock  of  negroes  once  in  seven  years." 

Miss  Martineau's  credulity,  on  the  subject  of  slave  atroci- 
ties, is  sufficiently  English.  Such  an  assertion  should  not  be 
made  but  upon  the  most  unquestionable  authority.  It  would, 
I  fancy,  be  a  subject  of  some  difficulty  to  point  out  the  Lou- 
isiana planter  who  finds  it  the  best  economy  to  wear  out  his 
machinery  as  rapidly  as  possible.  It  would  be  equally  diffi- 
cult, I  apprehend,  to  bring  forth  the  sugar  refiner  to  sup- 
port the  indictment.  As  an  honest  man, — as  a  man  of  any 
sort — he  should  have  denounced  by  name  the  heartless  wretch 
by  whom  the  speech  was  made.  But  this  is  of  a  piece  with 
the  usual  fictions  of  the  abolitionists,  which  most  commonly 
defeat  their  malice  by  their  absurdities.  It  is  possible  that 


THE    MORALS    OF    SL AVERT.  217 

such  a  speech  was  made  ;  but  supposing  it  true,  it  proves 
nothing.  To  show  that  there  is  an  individual  monster  in  the 
slave  States,  argues  nothing  against  their  morals.  It  must  be 
shown  that  his  case  is  not  the  exception,  but  the  ordinary 
history.  There  is  a  work  of  fiction,  recently  published  by 
Mrs.  Stowe,  which  is  just  now  the  rage  with  the  abolitionists  ; 
the  great  error  of  which,  throughout,  consists  in  the  accumu- 
lation of  all  the  instances  that  can  be  found  of  cruelty  or 
crime  among  the  slaveholders.  Admit  all  her  statements  to 
be  true,  and  they  prove  nothing.  Her  facts  may  be  suscepti- 
ble of  proof,  while  her  inferences  are  wholly  false.  Take  an 
example  from  this  very  work  of  fiction,  (Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,) 
which  illustrates  this  error  of  reasoning  among  our  enemies. 
She  shows  us  a  planter  of  Louisiana,  as  one  of  the  most 
heartless,  bloody,  brutal,  gross,  loathsome  and  ignorant 
•wretches  under  the  sun.  She  gives  us  the  most  shocking 
details  of  his  inhumanities  ;  but,  in  doing  so,  she  herself 
isolates  him.  She  shows  that  he  resides  in  a  remote,  and 
scarcely  inaccessible  swamp  region,  where  his  conduct  comes 
under  no  human  cognizance.  How  is  society  answerable  for 
his  offences  ?  How  does  lie  represent  the  condition  and  char- 
acter of  the  slaveholder  ?  The  very  isolation  of  his  position 
and  of  the  case,  is  conclusive  against  its  application.  When 
to  this  we  add,  that  the  equal  necessities  of  truth  and  fiction 
seem  to  have  compelled  her,  though  a  Yankee,  to  admit  that 
this  brutal  specimen  is  a  Yankee  also,  we  may  reasonably, 
without  shaking  our  skirts,  refer  his  responsibilities  back  to 
his  native  parish. 

We  have  been  apt,  in  the  South,  to  think  and  to  assert,  that 
there  are  few  people  so  very  well  satisfied  with  their  condition 
as  the  negroes, — so  happy  of  mood,  so  jocund,  and  so  generally 
healthy  and  cheerful.  Such  has  been  the  general  admission 
of  the  traveller.  But  Miss  Martineau,  seeing  through  her 
19 


218  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

own  eyes,  gives  very  different  testimony.  She  never  saw  "  in 
any  brute,  an  expression  of  countenance  so  low,  so  lost,  as  in 
the  most  degraded  classes  of  negroes.  There  is  some  life  and 
intelligence  in  the  countenance  of  every  animal  ;  even  in  that 
of  the  silly  sheep  ;  nothing  so  dead  as  the  vacant,  unheeding 
look  of  the  depressed  slave  is  to  be  seen." 

The  depressed  slave,  we  suppose,  will  look  depressed,  just 
as  the  white  man  in  a  state  of  depression.  There  is  no  com- 
bating the  statement  as  it  is  made  ;  but  it  is  so  put  as  to  con- 
vey the  idea  that  such  is  the  usual  appearance  of  the  slave, 
and  as  the  natural  result  of  his  condition.  Unless  this  be 
meant,  the  passage  is  simply  absurd  and  gratuitous  ;  nobody 
need  be  told  that  men  who  suffer  will  be  apt  to  look  like 
sufferers.  It  is  the  testimony  of  travellers  generally — British 
mostly — and  Miss  Martineau  among  them — that  the  Ameri- 
can countenance  generally  (that  of  the  whites)  is  that  of 
a  people  care-worn  and  prematurely  old.  This  is  ascribed  by 
the  same  charitable  persons  to  the  greedy  avarice  of  the 
people,  the  degrading,  intense  and  uninterrupted  worship  of 
the  "  eternal  dollar."  The  exceptions  which  they  have  made, 
when  this  sarcasm  was  to  be  established,  were  all  in  favor  of 
the  slave.  Even  in  the  pages  of  our  author,  we  might  find  a 
dozen  passages  which  go  to  this  effect,  and  thus  conflict  with 
that  which  we  have  quoted ;  and,  but  that  it  appeared  to 
serve  the  purposes  of  Miss  Marti  neau's  single  object  and 
argument,  to  show  the  brutalizing  processes  of  slavery  upon 
its  subject,  we  think  it  very  probable  that  she  would  have 
seen  very  differently.  The  prevailing,  desire  <rf  the  mind  but 
too  commonly  imparts  its  own  color  to  the  eyes,  and  when  it 
fails  to  do  so,  the  perversely  hostile  soon  discovers  some  in- 
genious method  by  which  to  evade  the  argument  which  is 
suggested  by  the  senses.  Thus,  when  Dr.  Lardner  was  in 
this  country,  aiid  on  a  visit  to  Carolina,  he  found  himself 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  219 

forced  to  wonder  at  the  exceeding  comfort,  and  great  cheer- 
fulness and  contentment  of  the  negro.  He  freely  admitted 
that  nowhere  were  the  laboring  classes  better,  if  so  well 
treated,  as  our  slaves.  Their  sprightliness  particularly  com- 
manded his  notice,  their  buoyancy  and  happy  abandon.  So 
far,  his  eyes  beheld  things  through  a  diffi  rent  medium  from 
Miss  Martineau ;  but  the  Doctor  was  philosophically  per- 
verse ;  and  more  ingenious,  in  the  adoption  and  use  of  the 
fact,  than  the  lady  in  rejection  of  it.  His  regret  and  com- 
plaint were  that  the  silly  negroes  were  so  cheerful,  so  content, 
so  happy,  so  well  fed,  clothed,  and  generally  entreated. 
Why  ?  do  you  suppose  ?  "  Because,  it  permanently  recon- 
ciled them  to  their  condition!"  We  ask,  with  surprise — 
Well !  if  so,  is  not  this  prima  facie  evidence  that  the  condi- 
tion is  the  very  best  for  them  ?  "  Not  so !"  the  Doctor  sub- 
stantially replies,  "  for  the  sufficient  reason  that  it  conflicts 
with  certain  ideas  in  my  mind  on  that  subject  /"  This  is  the 
difficulty  with  all  these  people.  The  Doctor  was  a  better 
observer  than  philosopher.  He  blundered,  in  this  case,  as  he 
did  in  his  relations  with  Mrs.  Heavyside.  The  Doctor's  eyes 
showed  him,  truly,  that  the  lady  was  fair  to  look  upon ;  it 
was  his  moral  philosophy  that  failed  him,  not  his  senses, 
when  he  broke  the  commandments,  and  lusted  after  his 
neighbor's  wife. 

In  further  illustration  of  the  tendency  of  our  minds  to 
control  our  capacities  for  observation,  and  the  just  use  of  our 
senses,  I  give  another  instance,  in  the  case  of  another  traveller 
in  the  South.  Mr.  Charles  Hoffman,  of  New- York,  a  gentle- 
man of  good  family,  and  the  author  of  several  works  of 
merit,  recently  (1836)  put  forth  a  couple  of  volumes  of  travels 
in  the  South  and  West.  On  his  arrival  in  Virginia,  he  is 
startled  with  a  spectacle,  such  as  he  has  never  before  wit- 
nessed, and  which  painfully  reminds  him  that  he  is  in  a  slave 


220  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

State.  What  is  that  spectacle  ?  A  stout,  able-bodied  white 
man  is  beheld,  sitting,  or  lying  at  ease,  in  his  piazza,  while  an 
old  negro  is  at  work,  hoe  in  hand,  in  the  contiguous  fields ! 
Is  it  not  curious  that  Mr.  Hoffman  should  never  have  seen 
this  spectacle  a  thousand  times  a  day  in  the  streets  of  New- 
York  ; — should  not  have  beheld  the  wealthy  nabob  at  his 
palace  windows,  along  Broadway,  or  Fifth  Avenue,  reclining 
in  state,  under  crimson  or  azure  curtains,  canopied  like  a 
prince,  while  the  aged  laborer  plies  his  weary  toil,  without 
cessation,  in  the  streets  below  ; — driving  the  iron  ram  down 
upon  the  unmalleable  stone,  paving  the  highways,  or,  in  mid- 
summer, piling  bricks,  bearing  the  hod  to  the  house-top,  saw- 
ing wood  and  lifting  luggage,  performing  toils  a  thousand 
times  more  heavy  than  any  task  which  is  put  upon  the  shoul- 
ders of  the  Southern  slave  ?  The  one  condition  proves  the 
existence  of  slavery  no  more  than  the  other ;  and  there  is  no 
sort  of  reason  why  the  spectacle  should  give  pain  in  one  more 
than  in  the  other  instance.  They  both  simply  declare  for 
the  universal  inequalities  of  fortune  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
But  it  was  the  contrast  of  color  which  smote  the  eyes,  and 
drew  the  attention,  of  our  traveller  to  the  fact  in  Virginia, 
which  he  had  never  witnessed  in  New-York.  In  New-York, 
the  negro  is  seldom  caught  doing  hard  work  of  any  sort,  and 
he  wins  that  sympathy  in  the  South,  from  the  Northern  tra- 
veller, which  the  latter  does  not  seem  to  have  accorded  to  the 
sufferings  of  the  working  class  at  home. 

"  There  is  an  obligation  by  law  to  keep  an  overseer,  to 
obviate  insurrection." 

This  is  said  of  Alabama.  It  may  be  true  or  not.  It  is 
possible  that  there  is  a  similar  regulation  in  Carolina.  If  so, 
it  is  pretty  nearly  obsolete.  There  is  scarcely  any  need  of 
such  a  law  ;  and  certainly  none,  in  reference  to  the  event  which 
is  assigned  as  the  reason  for  its  enactment.  It  would  seem 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  221 

sufficiently  to  justify  the  practice  of  keeping  an  overseer,  on 
estates  where  the  owner  is  not  present,  that  the  profit  of  the 
plantation  would  dwindle  to  nothing  without  one.  In  Caro- 
lina and  Alabama,  as  in  New-England,  the  interests  of  the 
proprietor  would  sufficiently  suggest  the  necessity  of  such  an 
employee.  I  know,  indeed,  of  no  part  of  the  world,  in  which, 
if  the  subordinates  be  numerous,  the  overseer  can  safely  be 
dispensed  with.  He  is  employed,  if  not  necessary,  in  every 
factory  of  the  free  States.  According  to  Miss  Martineau,  the 
purpose  of  the  overseer  is  to  prevent  that  which,  as  a  white 
man,  it  would  be  equally  his  policy  to  resist  and  prevent, 
though  not  employed  as  an  overseer.  He  is  in  the  same  ship 
with  his  employer,  and  the  storm  which  would  sink  the  one, 
would  not  be  likely  to  spare  the  other.  But  what  would  the 
efforts  of  one  overseer,  a  single  man,  in  charge  frequently  of 
an  hundred  slaves,  avail  against  their  outbreak  ?  The  sug- 
gesiton  is  an  absurdity.  He  is  empolyed  with  regard  to  other 
objects ;  to  regulate,  to  direct,  the  labor  of  the  negroes ;  to 
see  that  they  work  ;  that  they  make  a  crop ;  to  keep  them  from 
roving  about  the  country,  robbing  hog-pens  and  hen-roosts, 
and  doing  those  things  which  occur  to  the  negro,  as,  perhaps, 
the  only  advantages  that  could  possibly  result  to  him  from 
his  freedom.  As  for  insurrection,  nobody  who  knows  any 
thing  of  the  country,  or  its  people,  has  any  apprehensions  on 
the  subject.  Men  retire  to  their  beds  at  night,  on  plantations 
surrounded  with  slaves,  without  locking  a  door  or  bolting  a 
window. 

"  For  any  responsible  service,"  says  Miss  Martineau,  "  slaves 
are  quite  unfit." 

This  is  not  true.  But,  assuming  it  to  be  true,  she  infers 
that  it  is  because  they  are  slaves  that  they  are  thus  irrespon- 
sible. What  is  the  fitness  of  the  free  negro  at  the  North — 
what  his  responsibility  ?  In  the  South,  we  have  ample  evi- 
19* 


222  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

clence  of  their  fitness,  -whenever  they  are  faithful.  The  Vir- 
ginia and  Carolina  negro  is  not  only  superior  to  the  African 
savages,  from  whom  they  sprung,  but,  when  they  have  had 
the  advantages  of  training  among  the  whites,  they  prove 
themselves  very  far  superior  to  the  free  red  men  of  the  coun- 
try. The  latter  defer  to  them  in  most  seasons  of  difficulty. 
They  make  them  frequently  their  own  and  the  "  sense-keep- 
ers" of  the  nation.  The  negro  slave,  Abraham,  was  the 
master  mind  among  the  Seminoles.  He  guided  the  councils 
of  "  Micanopy"  and  others  ;  and  had  the  policy  of  the  United 
States  been  a  little  more  subtle,  they  might  have  prevented 
the  last  war  with  the  Seminoles,  by  proper  douceurs  to  Abra- 
ham. In  respect  to  this  subject  of  the  negro  intellect  in  the 
slave  condition,  Miss  Martineau's  book  is  full  of  contradic- 
tions. In  one  place,  we  are  told  that  the  slaves  show  them- 
selves susceptible  of  education  in  numberless  respects  ;  in 
another,  they  are  denied  the  capacity  to  cut  out  their  own 
garments.  In  the  assertion  of  either  case,  the  good  lady 
makes  it  prove  the  curse  and  crime  of  slavery.  If  the  negro 
is  shown  to  have  improved,  she  insists  that  it  is  an  improve- 
ment in  spite,  and  not  in  consequence,  of  his  subjection  ;  and 
that  his  progress  in  a  free  condition  would  have  been  far 
greater  ; — if  he  fails,  and  shows  himself  incapable,  it  is  only 
because  he  is  degraded  by  his  bonds  into  fatuity.  In  the 
South,  nobody  denies  their  susceptibility  to  training ;  none 
who  do  not  readily  acknowledge  and  assert  their  improve- 
ment. There  are  certain  arts  in  which  they  may  excel — cer- 
tain employments  for  which  they  are -specially  fitted.  Some" 
of  the  best  dress  makers  and  tailors  in  the  South  are  slaves. 
The  mulatto  has  a  genius  for  barbering  and  hair-dressing. 
The  black  makes  a  first  rate  butcher,  and  as  a  fish  and  melon 
vender  is  incomparable.  His  eloquence  in  crying  his  wares, 
however  rude,  is  very  efficient.  In  the  cities  of  the  South, 


THE   MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  223 

the  barbers,  many  of  the  butchers,  and  several  of  the  tavern 
keepers,  are  slaves  or  free  negroes,  quite  respected,  shrewd, 
intelligent,  and  usually  prosperous  in  all  these  occupations. 

Miss  Martineau  not  unfrequently  takes  the  position  of  the 
slaveholder,  and  argues  his  case  for  him;  simply  to  show  the 
weakness  of  his  cause.  The  defence  is  usually  pitiful  enough. 
To  show  our  own  inequality  to  the  argument,  she  records  all 
our  angry  speeches ;  and  the  disputant  whom,  on  another 
subject,  she  would  scorn  to  notice,  is  honored  with  a  heedful 
ear,  and  a  chronicled  remembrance,  when  he  utters  himself, 
in  a  heat,  and  savagely,  on  a  topic  which  is  at  all  times  apt  to 
provoke  us.  "  We  have  our  slaves  and  mean  to  keep  them," 
was  never  spoken  by  any  Southern  gentleman,  by  way  of 
argument  on  the  subject  of  Slavery  ;  but  in  defiance  ;  shortly, 
to  answer  an  insolent  party  seeking  to  exercise  a  power  in  the 
councils  of  the  Federal  Government,  in  relation  to  a  subject 
over  which  the  Southron  denies  that  government  shall  exer- 
cise any  jurisdiction  ;  or  in  answer,  perhaps,  to  some  impudent 
foreigner,  stupidly  pressing  upon  a  mood  which  his  own  pro- 
vocations have  rendered  irritable  to  the  last  degree. 

Speaking  of  the  Southampton  insurrection.  Miss  Martineau 
says — "  It  happened  before  the  abolition  movement  began  • 
for  it  is  remarkable  that  no  insurrections  have  taken  place 
since  the  friends  of  the  slave  have  been  busy  afar  off ';" 
"  whereas  rebellions  broke  out  as  often  as  once  a  month  before  ; 
there  have  been  none  since."  Of  this  frequency  of  rebellion 
we  hear  for  the  first  time.  In  regard  to  the  rest  of  this  mat- 
ter, we  shall  say  but  few  words.  Our  author  confounds  cause 
with  effect.  She  should  have  said  that  the  Southampton  in- 
surrection broke  out  before  the  secret  workings  of  the  aboli- 
tionists had  been  generally  detected  or  suspected.  The  insur- 
rections ceased  the  moment  that  the  loving  labors  of  the  abo- 
litionists were  discovered,  and  when  they  were  constrained  to 


224  THE   MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

be  "  busy  only  afar  off."  The  fact,  as  well  as  the  phrase,  is 
a  very  significant  one.  The  moment  that  the  South  roused 
itself,  grew  angry,  drove  the  abolitionists  off,  and  burned 
their  pamphlets  and  tracts,  the  insurrections,  "  which  had 
broke  out  as  often  as  once  a  month  before,"  entirely  ceased  ! 
There  have  been  none  since.  The  good  lady  needs  glass 
eyes ! 

The  failure  of  Christian  preaching  among  the  slaves,  in 
making  them  any  better,  is  next  insisted  on  as  the  result  of 
slavery ;  as  if  slavery,  which  requires  submission  and  obedi- 
ence on  the  part  of  the  inferior,  was  not  really  an  auxiliary  to 
the  Christian  preliminary  of  humility.  But  any  one  who 
should  report  an  improved  condition  of  religion  at  the  North, 
in  the/ree  States,  black  or  white,  would  greatly  peril  his 
honest  conscience. 

"  The  testimony  of  slaveholders  was  explicit  as  to  no  moral 
improvement  having  taken  place  in  consequence  of  the  intro- 
duction of  religion.  There  was  less  singing  and  dancing ; 
but  as  much  lying,  drinking  and  stealing  as  ever." 

The  question  might  here  be  asked,  who  are  the  authorities 
for  the  statement  ?  It  is  too  general  and  sweeping  to  be  true. 
In  regard  to  some  regions,  the  report  is  false;  and  in  others 
it  is,  perhaps,  only  true,  in  consequence  of  the  peculiar  quality 
of  the  so-called  religion  which  wast  aught.  But  the  vices 
named  are  not  confined  to  the  slaves ;  and  the  budget  of  hor- 
rors, brutalities  and  miscellaneous  crimes,  which  the  book  of 
Miss  M.  unfolds,  as  of  occurrence  among  the  free  people  of 
the  country,  should  have  taught  her  to  hesitate  ere  she 
ascribed  the  short-comings  of  the  negro  to  slavery.  The 
very  abolition  of  singing  and  dancing,  as  the  result  of  the 
religion,  must  sufficiently  show  the  sort  of  religion  which  was 
busy  ;  and  should  certainly  have  produced  some  doubt,  in  the 
mind  of  one  so  subtle  on  most  subjects  as  the  writer,  whether 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  225 

the  religion  itself  which,  at  the  outset,  subverted  the  innocent 
and  natural  recreations  of  a  simple  people,  was  not  likely  to 
produce  even  greater  evils  than  it  professed  to  cure.  The 
philosophical  mind  has  long  since  been  anxiously  watchful  of 
the  fearful  progress  of  a  gloomy  bigotry  throughout  the 
land.  Miss  Martineau  should  not  have  treated  it  so  blindly — 
suffering  her  own  infirmity  to  obscure  to  her  view  a  subject 
of  the  greatest  popular  importance.  She  should  have  re- 
membered, while  ascribing  to  slavery  the  defeat  and  failure 
of  the  professors  of  religion  to  make  any  impression  upon  the 
slaves,  what  she  has  herself  said  of  their  progress  among  the 
red  men,  who  are  freed  from  all  the  restraints  which  she 
deems  so  pernicious  to  the  black.  The  gloomy  and  ascetic 
doctrines  of  our  teachers  have  resulted  only  in  the  greater 
depravation  of  the  savage :  while  the  French  Catholics,  who 
taught  an  easier  faith,  and  indulgent  laws  of  exercise  and 
recreation,  have  been  eminently  successful  in  improving  them. 
"  Near  Little  Traverse,  in  the  north-west  part  of  Michigan," 
says  Miss  Martineau,  "there  is  an  Indian  village,  full  of 
orderly  and  industrious  inhabitants,  employed  chiefly  in  agri- 
culture. The  English  and  Americans  have  never  succeeded 
with  the  aborigines  so  well  as  the  French ;  and  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  the  clergy  have  been  a,  much  greater  blessing 
than  the  traders." 

There  is  one  passage  in  Miss  Martineau's  book  which  calls 
for  the  serious  attention  of  the  philosopher.  We  quote  the 
passage  entire.  She  is  describing  the  State  asylum  for  luna- 
tics, in  Columbia,  South-Carolina.  "  I  observed  that  no  peo- 
ple of  color  were  visible  in  any  part  of  the  establishment.  I 
inquired  whether  negroes  were  as  subject  to  insanity  as  whites. 
Probably ;  but  no  means  were  known  to  have  been  taken  to 
ascertain  the  fact.  From  the  violence  of  their  passions,  there 
could  be  no  doubt  that  insanity  must  exist  among  them. 


226  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

Were  such  insane  negroes  ever  seen  ?  No  one  present  had 
ever  seen  any.  Where  were  they,  then  ?  It  was  some  time 
before  I  could  get  a  clear  answer  to  this  :  but  my  friend,  the 
physician,  said,  at  length,  that  he  had  no  doubt  they  were  kept 
in  outhouses,  chained  to  logs,  to  prevent  their  doing  mis- 
chief." 

It  is  singular,  indeed,  that  we  should  find  so  very  few  insane 
persons  among  the  blacks.  The  absence  of  all  care  for  the 
morrow,  for  the  future,  for  their  own  support  in  age,  and  the 
support  of  their  children,  together  with  the  restraints  of  labor, 
tending  to  the  subjection  of  those  intense  passions  of  which 
Miss  Martineau  speaks,  and  which  are  not  in  consequence  so 
active,  I  arn  inclined  to  think,  in  the  negro,  as  in  the  white 
man,  must  greatly  abridge  the  tendency  to  insanity ;  and  it 
may  be  that  the  generally  inferior  activity  of  their  minds, 
is  one  cause  of  their  freedom  from  this  dreadful  malady. 
Certain  it  is,  that  we  have  few  or  no  madmen  among  the 
negroes.  The  idea  that  they  are  chained  in  out-houses  to 
logs,  is  idle  enough ;  since,  in  that  condition,  they  would 
require  the  constant  attention  of  one  or  more  able  slaves, 
•which  a  master  would  not  be  willing  to  afford  ;  and  would 
be,  in  other  respects,  a  monstrous  annoyance.  Were  insanity 
at  all  common  among  them,  "  it  would  be,"  in  Miss  Marti- 
neau's  own  language,  "  the  interest  of  masters  to  provide  for 
their  useless  or  mischievous  negroes  ;" — and  this — were  there 
sufficient  occasion — would  have  been  the  case.  But,  in  truth 
there  is  little  or  no  madness  in,  South-Carolina,  whether 
among  black  or  white.*  The  lunatic  asylum  is  not  a  popular 

*  Since  these  passages  were  penned,  the  United  States  census  con- 
firms our  facts,  and  thus  justifies  our  inferences.  The  reader  need  not 
be  reminded  of  the  official  statement  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  when  Secretary 
of  State,  under  Tyler,  comparing  the  relative  insanity  of  the  North 
and  South,  and  the  blind  rage  which  followed  the  exposure  among 
the  abolitionists. 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  227 

institution  in  the  State,  as  it  is  known  to  be  unprofitable, 
and  was  believed  to  be  unnecessary.  The  patients  are  usually 
very  few — not  enough  to  support  the  establishment — and 
these,  in  half  the  number  of  instances,  are  drawn  from  other 
States.  The  few  cases  of  madness  known  in  the  State,  prior 
to  the  establishment  of  the  present  asylum,  were  kept  in  a 
small  building,  devoted  to  the  purpose,  in  Charleston,  con- 
nected with  the  Poor  establishment  of  that  city.  Among  the 
inmates  there  were  one  or  two  negroes,  both  women — I  do 
not  think  that  there  were  more.  The  number  was  greater 
during  the  revolution,  when  the  building  appropriated  to  their 
confinement  stood  in  the  same  neighborhood  with  the  fabric 
more  recently  put  to  their  use,  and  both  within  a  short  dis- 
tance of  the  place  of  arms,  or  arsenal,  which,  when  Charleston 
fell  into  the  possession  of  the  British,  was  assigned  as  the 
depot  for  the  reception  of  the  weapons  of  the  defenders.  A 
melancholy  fate  attended  the  maniacs,  in  consequence  of  this 
propinquity.  The  American  prisoners,  ordered  to  deposit 
their  arms  in  the  arsenal,  under  the  feelings  of  mortified  pride 
and  shame,  which,  naturally  enough,  followed  the  surrender 
of  their  city,  threw  the  weapons  and  ammunition  confusedly 
together,  into  the  hall  designed  for  them,  without  any  heed 
to  the  danger  of  such  carelessness.  The  consequences  were 
dreadful.  The  building  was  blown  up,  the  guard  of  British 
soldiers,  fifty  in  number,  destroyed,  and  the  contiguous  houses, 
the  poor-house  and  mad-house,  destroyed  also,  with  the  great- 
er number  of  their  unhappy  inmates. 

But,  to  return  to  our  author.  Miss  Martineau  does  not  let 
this  opportunity  slip,  of  conveying  an  imputation  of  inhu- 
manity at  the  expense  of  the  slaveholders. 

"  No  member  of  society  is  charged  with  the  duty  of  in- 
vestigating cases  of  disease  and  suffering  among  slaves,  who 


228  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

cannot  make  their  own  state  known.     They  are  wholly  at  the 
mercy  of  their  owners." 

We  had  almost  called  these  wilful  misstatements.  The 
grand  juries  of  the  country  are  bound  to  take  cognizance  of 
all  such  matters,  and  do  so  whenever  occasion  requires.  The 
slaves,  themselves,  will  always  contrive  to  make  their  suffer- 
ings known,  and  have  few  scruples  in  complaining,  whether 
they  have  cause  or  not.  A  brutal  master  is  sometimes  pun- 
ished, and  always  known ;  and  his  offences  against  law  and 
humanitr,  in  the  treatment  of  his  slaves,  are  quite  as  often 
the  subject  of  public  inquiry  and  prosecution,  as  in  any  other 
cases  over  which  juries  possess  jurisdiction.  But  it  is  not 
often  that  he  offends  by  their  ill-treatment.  His  interest  in 
the  life  and  health  of  his  slave  obviates  the  necessity  of  any 
particular  supervision  of  the  subject  by  the  public  authorities. 
No  better  security  has  ever  yet  been  devised  by  man,  for  the 
safety  of  man,  and  the  proper  observance  of  humane  laws  by 
the  citizen,  than  that  which  the  Southern  slaveholder  offers, 
in  the  continual  presence  of  his  leading  interests.  It  would 
be  fortunate  for  the  country  if  the  securities  of  the  abolitionist 
to  society  were  half  so  good.  As  for  the  chaining  of  the  ne- 
gro lunatic  in  outhouses,  the  notion  is  ridiculous.  A  case  of 
temporary  necessity  like  this  may  have  occurred,  but  nothing 
more.  A  madman,  chained  in  an  outhouse,  would  be  a  suffi- 
cient source  of  disquiet  to  all  the  country  round ;  and  the 
neighborhood  would  soon  rise,  en  masse,  and  compel  his  re- 
moval to  a  place  of  safe-keeping. 

There  is  one  painful  chapter  in  these  two  volumes,  under 
the  head  of  "Morals  of  Slavery."  It  is  painful,  because  it  is 
full  of  truth.  It  is  devoted  to  the  abuses,  among  slavehold- 
ers, of  the  institution  of  slavery;  and  it  gives  a  collection  of 
statements  which  are,  no  doubt,  in  too  many  cases,  founded 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  229 

upon  fact,  of  the  illicit  and  foul  conduct  of  some  among  us, 
why  make  their  slaves  the  victims  and  the  instruments,  alike, 
of  the  most  licentious  passions.  Regarding  our  slaves  as  a 
dependent  and  inferior  people,  we  are  their  natural  and  only 
guardians  ;  and  to  treat  them  brutally,  whether  by  wanton 
physical  injuries,  by  a  neglect,  or  perversion  of  their  morals, 
is  not  more  impolitic  than  it  is  dishonorable.  We  do  not 
quarrel  with  Miss  Martineau  for  this  chapter.  The  truth — 
though  it  is  not  all  truth — is  quite  enough  to  sustain  her  and 
it ;  and  we  trust  that  its  utterance  may  have  that  beneficial 
effect  upon  the  relations  of  master  and  slave  in  our  country, 
which  the  truth  is,  at  all  times,  most  likely  to  have  every 
where.  Still,  we  are  not  satisfied  with  the  spirit  with  which 
Miss  M.  records  the  grossness  which  fills  this  chapter.  She 
has  exhibited  a  zest  in  searching  into  the  secrets  of  our  pri- 
son-house, in  the  slave  States,  which  she.  does  not  seem  to 
have  shown  in  any  other  quarter.  The  female  prostitution 
of  the  South  is  studiously  looked  after,  as  if  it  were  the  pe- 
culiar result  of  slavery.  She  makes  no  corresponding  inquiry 
into  the  prostitution  of  the  North.  She  picks  up  no  tales  of 
vice  in  that  quarter — no  rapes — no  murders — no  robberies — 
no  poisoning — no  stabbing.  She  has  addressed  her  whole 
mind  to  the  search  after  these  things  in  the  slave  States ; 
and,  with  a  strange  singleness  of  vision,  she  has  entirely  for- 
borne the  haunts  of  the  negro  at  the  North,  and  the  degraded 
classes  in  the  free  States.  She  says  nothing  whatsoever  about 
them.  Had  she  demanded  of  Mr.  Tappan  a  copy  of  the 
report  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  Magdalen  Asylum,  of 
New-York,  of  which  he  was  the  President,  and  one  of  the 
founders,  she  would  have  been  told  by  that  publication,  that, 
in  the  city  of  New-York  alone,  not  including  blacks,  there 
are  ten  thousand  professional  prostitutes.  We  do  not  answer 
for  the  truth  of  this  assertion ;  but  as  Miss  M.  has  bestowed, 
20 


230  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

elsewhere,  a  most  lavish  eulogy  upon  the  veracity  and  general 
good  character  of  the  abolitionists,  and  as  Mr.  Tappan  has 
been  heretofore  regarded  as  the  very  Coryphceus  of  that  fra- 
ternity, she  will  be  able  to  determine  for  herself  the  degree 
of  confidence  which  she  should  yield  to  this  statement.  The 
fact  is,  that,  in  the  Southern  States,  the  prostitutes  of  the 
communities  are  usually  slaves,  unless  when  imported  from 
the  free  States.  The  negro  and  the  colored  woman,  in  the 
South,  supply  the  place  which,  at  the  North,  is  usually  filled 
with  factory  and  serving  girls.  The  evil  is  one  for  which 
good  morals  can  offer  no  apology  in  any  region ;  but  this 
may  be  said  of  it  in  the  South,  that  it  affects,  there,  a  race 
which  has  not  yet  been  lifted  into  sensibilities,  the  possession 
of  which  necessarily  brings,  with  indulgence  in  the  vice,  the 
consciousness  of  degradation.  It  does  not  debase  the  civi- 
lized, as  is  the  case  with  prostitution  at  the  North.  It  scarce- 
ly, in  any  way,  affects  the  mind  of  the  negro,  and  does  not 
materially  affect  his  social  status.  The  case  is  far  otherwise 
with  white  prostitution.  The  only  way  to  judge  of  the  vice, 
in  connection  with  slavery,  is  to  compare  its  practice  in  both 
regions,  North  and  South.  Prostitution  seems  to  be  an  inci- 
dent of  humanity,  in  its  fallen  state.  Napoleon,  finding  it 
ineradicable  from  the  community,  legislated  for  it,  and  thus 
ameliorated  some  of  its  evils.  If  the  practice  were  not  great 
in,  and  common  to,  all  communities,  savage  and  civilized,  bond 
and  free,  it  might  be  permitted  to  dwell  upon  its  aspects,  as 
they  show  themselves  especially  in  the  slave  States  ;  but  not 
as  the  matter  stands  with  all.  We  may,  and  do,  acknowledge 
our  guilt  in  the  South,  but  not  as  slaveholders ;  and,  looking 
at  all  the  regions  of  the  earth,  we  may  add,  "  those,  only,  who 
are  least  guilty,  may  be  permitted  to  cast  the  stone  !" 

"We  are  perfectly  safe  in  saying  that  two-thirds  of  these  vol- 
umes are  devoted  to  the  slavery  question,  and  in  the  States  of 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  231 

the  South.  Now,  the  lady  gives  us  a  body  of  assumed  facts; 
now,  her  declamations  upon  them  ;  and,  anon,  a  subtle  topic 
of  metaphysics,  by  way  of  novel  speculation.  Setting  forth 
evidently  with  the  resolve  to  uproot  and  utterly  destroy  an 
institution  which  she  has  previously  resolved  to  be  evil,  she 
sees  no  aspect  of  it  which  is  not  so.  The  kindness  of  the 
master  to  the  slave  is  likened  to  the  kindness  which  he  has 
for  his  dog  ;  the  affection  of  the  slave,  and  his  respect  for 
one  whom  lie  looks  up  to  as  greatly  superior,  is  ascribed  to 
the  fear  of  punishment,  or  the  utter  fatuity  of  his  intellect. 
Es-ery  anecdote  of  cruelty  which  she  hears  is  religiously  writ- 
ten down*  and  honestly  believed  ;  and  even  the  jealous  appre- 
hensions of  a  jaundiced  wife,  who  fears  that  her  husband  is 
no  better  than  he  should  be,  are  chronicled  with  a  sad  so- 
lemnity— which  is  amusing  enough — as  the  fruit  of  slavery. 
The  outrages  of  the  borderers — the  frontier  law  of  "regula- 
tion," or  "lynching."  which  is  common  to  new  countries,  all 
over  the  world — are  ascribed  to  slavery.  Miss  M\,  along  with 
too  many  others,  seems  to  think  that  none  but  well-bred, 
quiet,  peaceable  men,  should  tame  the  wilderness.  All  her 
stories  of  great  crimes,  of  burning,  and  hanging,  and  stabbing, 
which  she  has  raked  up  with  such  exquisite  care,  are  stones 
of  the  borders.  They  belong  to  that  period  in  the  history  of 
society,  when  civilization  sends  forth  her  pioneer  to  tame  the 
wilderness.  Your  well-bred  city  gentleman  is  no  pioneer — 
he  belongs  to  a  better  condition  of  things,  and  to  after  times. 
It  is  the  bold,  reckless  adventurer,  the  dissolute  outcast,  the 
exile  from  crime,  or  from  necessities  of  one  sort  or  another, 
who  goes  forth  to  contend  with  the  wild  beasts,  the  stubborn 
forests,  and  the  savage  tribes  who  prowl  among  them.  These 
people,  naturally  enough,  become  as  wild,  almost,  as  those 
whom  they  conquer ;  but  they  have  their  uses.  They  are 
the  lower  limbs  of  civilization,  and  the  links  which  connect 


232  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

the  wilderness  with  the  city.  They  prepare  the  way  for  civi- 
lization, if  uncivilized  themselves ;  and,  however  much  we 
may  deplore  the  crimes  which  they  sometimes  commit,  we 
must  content  ourselves  with  the  knowledge  that  these  crimes 
seem  to  be  unavoidable,  under  the  circumstances,  and  will 
continue  to  be  committed,  by  the  same  class  of  men,  when- 
ever, in  a  new  country,  the  presence  of  such  adventurers  be- 
comes necessary.  This  is  said  simply,  by  way  of  statement. 
It  is  only  a  record  of  the  fact,  which  I  do  not  seek  to  excuse, 
let  it  happen  South  or  North.  I  look  upon  all  violence 
and  all  injustice  as  brutal,  whether  it  be  the  burning  of  the 
convent,  the  assault  upon  the  trembling  nuns,  and*their  sub- 
sequent denial  of  justice,  the  frequent  murders  of  women  in 
places  professing  to  be  civilized,  and  where  they  are  pleased 
to  declaim  very  much  about  the  outrages  upon  the  borders, 
or  the  cruel  "lynchings,"  at  the  South,  of  the  sturdy  incen- 
diary. These  atrocities,  in  the  settled  communities  of  our 
country,  may,  most  generally,  be  ascribed  to  the  constant  ap- 
peals which  are  made  to  what  is  called  "  public  opinion  ;"  an 
appeal  to  a  something — a  power  beyond  the  law — which  is 
expected  to  take  the,  form  of  an  equitable  jurisdiction,  and 
remedy  its  supposed  deficiencies.  This  I  take  to  be  one  of 
the  great  causes  of  so  much  mobbing,  and  burning,  and  riot- 
ing, and  lynching,  in  recent  times,  among  us.  "Public  opin- 
ion," so  called,  is  very  apt  to  become  public  action  ;  and  the 
mob,  whom  an  editor  invokes  to  ridicule  the  militia  law,  will 
not  hesitate  long  to  tar  and  feather  the  colonel,  who  is  some- 
thing of  a  martinet,  and  desires  to  sustain  it.  But  it  is  not 
public  opinion  which  is  thus  invoked  ;  it  is  popular  passion, 
and  a  vain  insolence,  which  are  cherished  and  brought  into 
activity  by  such  appeals,  and  which  then  become  a  tyranny, 
being  out  of  its  place.  Public  opinion  is  of  very  slow,  very 
temperate,  and  very  judicious  formation.  It  is  the  aggregate 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  233 

of  small  truths,  and  the  experience  of  successive  days  and 
years,  which,  heaped  together,  form  a  general  principle,  which 
is  of  final  conviction  in  every  bosom.  It  only  requires  to 
receive  a  name,  in  order  to  become  a  law ;  and  a  law  which 
is  precipitately  imposed  upon  a  people,  in  advance  of  the 
formation  of  this  sort  of  public  opinion,  will  soon  be  openly 
abolished,  or  become  obsolete,  in  the  progress  of  events.  For 
my  own  part,  I  am  satisfied  with  the  existing  laws,  until  the 
gradual  and  naturally  formed  convictions  of  the  community, 
and  the  progress  of  experience,  shall  call  for  their  improve- 
ment. I  have  no  respect  for  those  who  set  themselves  up  for 
makers  of  public  opinion ;  and  as  for  the  "  hell-broth  "  so 
compounded,  I  know  not  any  draught  which  would  not  be  more 
wholesome  than  that  which  makes  the  body  politic  a  body 
plethoric,  and  leaves  no  remedy  to  the  physician  but  the  cau- 
tery and  the  knife.  The  evils  of  this  sort,  thus  originating, 
are,  by  the  way,  far  less  frequent  in  the  slave  than  in  the  free 
States,  which  really  no  not  appear  to  possess  a  single  principle 
of  permanence  and  stability. 

A  goodly  portion  of  the  two  volumes  of  Miss  Martineau  is 
compiled  from  the  conversations  and  opinions  of  Americans, 
who  are  nameless,  followed  by  her  examination  of  them. 
She  sets  up  these  argumentative  nine-pins  with  the  utmost 
gravity,  and  bowls  them  down  with  great  rapidity  and  won- 
derful adroitness.  Many  of  her  arguments  are  carried  on 
•with  women  ;  and  as  there  are  very  few  women  so  "  cunning 
of  fence,"  on  her  own  ground,  as  this  professional  disputant,  it 
is  easy  to  see,  not  only  that  she  obtains  an  easy  victory,  but 
that  she  derives  no  increase  of  knowledge  from  the  contro- 
versy. Her  own  estimate  of  the  mental  pretensions  of  the 
American  women  should  have  saved  l\er  from  a  misplaced 
confidence  either  in  their  evidence  or  judgment.  Indeed,  she 
only  confides  in.  their  opinions  when  it  answers  her  purpose  to 
20* 


234  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

do  so.  She  describes  them  as  little  above  fatuity.  The  three 
chapters  devoted  to  this  subject,  under  the  general  head  of 
"  Woman,"  present  a  singular  and  contradictory  compound 
of  truth  and  error,  which  nothing  but  a  rabid  desire  for  pub- 
lication could  have  suffered  her  to  put  forth.  The  minds  of 
the  American  women,  according  to  her  estimate,  with  few 
exceptions,  are  little  else  than  a  blank.  They  have  little  or 
no  practical  philosophy — no  thought ; — and  they  confound 
learning  with  wisdom.  Wherever  she  hea'-d  of  a  woman 
having  a  local  celebrity,  she  was  sure  to  find  her  a  mere  lin- 
guist ;  and  she  winds  up  her  generally  contemptuous  estimate 
of  the  sex,  by  ascribing  drunkenness  to  the  more  enlightened 
among  them — a  vice,  perhaps,  more  utterly  foreign  to  the 
American  woman,  than  to  the  woman  of  any  other  country 
on  the  face  of  the  globe.  "  It  is  no  secret,  on  the  spot,  thai 
the  habit  of  intemperance  is  not  unfrequent  among  women  of 
station  and  education,  in  the.  most  enlightened  parts  of  the 
country.  I  witnessed  some  instances,  and  heard  of  more.  It 
does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  regarded  with  all  the  dismay 
which  such  a  symptom  ought  to  excite."  The  wonder  is, 
•with  such  an  estimate  of  the  sex,  she  should  have  drawn 
most  of  her  authorities  from  them.  This  she  does,  common- 
ly, on  the  subject  of  slavery.  Her  dialogues  are  mostly  had 
•with  women  ;  and  those  which  she  reports  are  certainly  silly 
enough,  in  most  cases,  to  support  her  estimate.  Fortunately, 
since  the  days  of  Lady  Blessington's  protracted  conversations 
with  Lord  Byron,  men  are  not  satisfied  with  reports  of  this 
description,  unless  they  have  proof  that  the  stenographer  has 
been  by,  all  the  while,  and  busy. 

Another  source  of  authority,  with  Miss  Martineau,  are  the 
public  men  of  our  country — the  members  of  Congress,  of 
both  parties,  and  those,  seemingly,  among  the  most  violent. 
It  does  appear  to  me  that  she  could  not  have  erred  more 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  235 

strikingly  thari  in  this  particular :  since  the  furious  partizan, 
whether  in  England  or  America,  is  usually  the  last  person  in 
the  world  from  whom  the  unprejudiced  and  ungarbled  truth 
can  be  derived.  That  she  should  not  have  given  the  most 
implicit  confidence  to  their  statements,  is  the  legitimate  con- 
clusion from  her  own  report  of  them.  She  tells  us  that  they 
strove  to  make  a  partizan  of  her — sought  to  secure  her  fa- 
vorable opinions — and,  on  all  occasions,  exhibited  much  more 
earnestness  in  making  proselytes  to  the  party,  than  they  would 
have  done  in  securing  them  to  the  cause  of  truth.  It  is  true, 
she  is,  here  and  there,  annoyed  with  something  in  their  con- 
duct that  seems  to  startle  her  with  the  semblance  of  an  in- . 
consistency  ;  but  she  does  not,  even  then,  doubt  the  good 
faith  of  the  speaker — when  it  serves  her  turn,  or  supports  her 
favorite  idea.  She  suspects  the  judgment  first — aye,  al- 
ways— with  a  self-confidence  in  her  own,  which  is  thoroughly 
English — the  weakness — anything  but  the  prejudice  and  the 
interest  of  party.  The  politicians  of  Carolina  give  heed,  and 
bow  ready  assent  to  all  her  anti-slavery  propositions  ;  and 
when  she  believes  that  she  has  them  all  snugly  within  the 
hem  of  her  garment,  she  is  thunderstruck  to  hear  them  vote 
aloud  in  approbation  of  Governor  McDufSe's  thoroughgoing, 
yet  only  half-elaborated,  opinions  in  favor  of  slavery.  To  this 
day,  she  does  not  suspect  that  a  polite  Southern  gentleman, 
in  a  ball-room,  would  infinitely  prefer  bowing  assent  to  all  her 
propositions,  than  gravely  undertake  to  refute  them,  through 
the  medium  of  her  "charming"  trumpet. 

"  It  was  necessary  to  purchase  Florida,  because  it  was  a 
retreat  for  runaways." 

This  was  one  reason,  perhaps ;  but  Miss  M.  seems  to  have 
been  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  history  of  Florida.  It 
may  be  well  to  inform  her,  that  the  best  reason  for  the  pur- 


236  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

chase  of  that  country,  is  kindred  to  that  which  prompts  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain  to  maintain  so  jealous  a 
•watch  upon  the  Island  of  Cuba,  in  order  to  keep  it  from  fall- 
ing into  the  possession  of  any  great  maritime  power.  From 
the  first,  Florida,  under  the  Spaniards,  had  been  the  scourge 
of  the  Southern  States.  As  Colonies  and  States,  they  were 
subjected  to  the  continual  incursions  of  the  savages,  under 
Spanish  influence ;  and  the  wars  of  the  borders,  between  the 
two  people,  were  among  the  most  sanguinary  of  those  that 
ever  took  place  in  America.  St.  Augustine  was  emphatically 
styled,  by  the  early  English  settlers  in  the  South,  as  the 
"  Sallee  of  America."  In  later  days,  a  more  urgent  neces- 
sity arose  for  the  acquisition  of  this  territory,  as  it  furnished 
a  foothold,  during  the  war  of  1812,  to  our  affectionate  mother, 
England,  to  plant  her  standard  upon  it,  and  summon  her  red 
brethren  to  pile  up  the  scalps  of  her  banished  children  be- 
neath it.  Had  Miss  Martineau  read  the  history,  she  might 
have  found  stronger  reasons  for  the  acquisition  of  this  terri- 
tory by  the  United  States,  than  the  recovery  of  its  fugitive 
slaves ;  though  that  would  be  reason  quite  enough,  in  our 
estimation,  to  justify  the  purchase.  But,  he  who  knows  any 
thing  of  the  American  people,  needs  not  to  hunt  up  a  neces- 
sity, of  any  kind,  for  their  acquisition  of  territory,  or  any 
reason  better  than  the  greed  and  strength  of  appetite.  It  is 
quite  enough  that  the  land  is  in  the  neighborhood,  and  acces- 
sible, to  be  lusted  after  ;  and  the  lust  does  not  often  scruple 
at  the  process  by  which  it  gratifies  itself. 

Miss  Martineau  deals  in  unmeasured  invective,  in  respect  to 
the  annexation  of  Texas,  an  event  then  only  in  anticipation. 
She  has  her  nice  Tittle  story,  of  abolition  manufacture,  touch- 
ing this  rogion  also,  which  is  quite  different  from  that  told  by 
the  Texans  themselves.  But  I  need  not  linger  upon  this 
topic. 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  237 

Of  the  causes  of  the  war  with  the  Seminoles,  she  gives  us 
the  following  history : 

"  According  to  the  laws  of  the  slave  States,  the  children  of 
the  slaves  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  mother.  It  will  be  seen, 
at  a  glance,  what  consequences  follow  upon  this  ;  how  it  ope- 
rates as  a  premium  upon  licentiousness  among  white  men ; 
how  it  prevents  any  but  mock-marriages  among  slaves ;  and, 
also,  what  effect  it  must  have  upon  any  Indians  with  whom 
slave  women  have  taken  refuge.  The  late  Seminole  war  arose 
out  of  this  law.  The  escaped  slaves  had  intermarried  with 
the  Indians.  The  masters  claimed  the  children.  The  Semi- 
nole fathers  would  not  deliver  them  up.  Force  was  used,  to 
tear  the  children  from  their  parents'  arms,  and  the  Indians 
began  their  desperate,  but  very  natural  war,  of  extermination." 

Such  is  the  story  of  Miss  Martineau.  Without  doubt,  it 
came  from  tlie  mint  of  the  abolitionists — the  people  of  such 
veracity.  This  version  is  entirely  new  in  the  South.  It  is  a 
budget  of  errors,  one  growing  out  of  the  other.  The  laws  of 
Florida  do  not  prevail  over  the  Indians.  The  children  of 
slaves  only  follow  the  condition  of  the  mother,  where  the 
laws  prevail.  If  a  runaway  woman  is  recovered  from  the 
Indian  territory,  her  child  will,  of  course,  follow  her  condition, 
under  the  laws  of  the  State  whence  she  escapes ;  and  there 
may  have  been  an  instance  where  the  child  of  an  Indian  father 
is  thus  recovered,  with  the  slave  mother,  and  carried  back 
into  bondage ;  but  I  am  disposed  to  doubt  even  this.  The 
occurrence  is  rare,  if  it  ever  does  or  did  take  place.  The 
Seminoles  own  slaves,  which  are  either  brought  from  the 
Island  of  Cuba,  or  have  been  stolen  from  the  whites,  at  re- 
mote periods.  They  are  only  transferred  from  one  kind  of 
slavery  to  another,  since  they  are  held  by  the  Indians  without 
any  restraints  of  law  whatsoeve",  and  are  liable  to  all  their 
caprices,  of  sudden  rage,  drunkenness,  gloomy  ferocity,  and  a 


238  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

malice  which  seems  natural  to  them.  Under  these  influences, 
the  slave  is  frequently  murdered,  and  the  murderer  goes  un- 
punished. It  is  only  such  philanthropists  as  modern  abolition 
provides,  who  esteem  it  better  for  the  negro  to  be  the  slave 
to  the  savage  than  to  the  civilized  man.  The  Indians  do  not 

O 

often  have  intercourse  with  their  slaves.  They  are  a  cold  and 
sterile  people,  as  is  the  case  with  most  of  the  wandering  tribes. 
Fecundity  is  one  of  the  fruits  of  a  settled  and  stationary  po- 
pulation. The  marriages  among  the  negro  slaves  of  the 
whites  are  much  more  formal,  and  quite  as  rigidly  observed, 
as  among  the  Indians,  who  are  polygamists  or  anything. 
They  are  creatures  of  impulse,  having  nothing  but  the 
mood  of  the  moment  for  their  laws.  The  rule,  that  the 
child  shall  follow  the  condition  of  the  mother,  is  not  a 
stimulant  to  licentiousness  among  the  whites,  and  we  almost 
wonder  to  find  Miss  Martineau  meditating  such  a  matter. 
She  certainly  knows  but  little  of  human  passion,  if  she  sup- 
poses that,  in  matters  of  this  nature,  the  mercenary  desire  of 
gain  will  prompt  the  white  man  to  such  excesses,  other  pro- 
vocatives being  wanting.  So  far  from  this  being  the  motive, 
it  may  be  stated  here  with  perfect  safety,  that  the  greater 
number  of  the  Southern  rnulattoes  have  been  made  free,  in 
consequence  of  their  relationship  to  their  owners.  In  fact, 
mulatto  slaves  are  not  liked.  vThey  are  a  feebler  race  than 
the  negro,  and  less  fitted  for  the  labors  of  the  field.  Of  late 
years,  some  arbitrary  laws  have  been  passed  in  Carolina, 
which  forbid  the  citizens  to  free  their  slaves.  I  do  not  ap- 
prove of  these  laws  myself;  but  they  have  their  advocates 
among  the  majority,  and  reasons  of  State  policy  are  given  in 
their  behalf,  which  are  imposing  enough,  if  not  altogether 
sound.  I  am  persuaded  that  it  would  be  a  wholesome  policy 
to  revoke  these  laws.  It  would,  in  the  first  place,  prevent 
their  frequent  evasion.  A  more  important  consideration  is, 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  239 

that  it  would  give  to  the  owner  a  power  now  denied,  of  doing 
full  justice  to  the  claims  of  the  faithful  and  the  intellectual, 
without  compelling  him  to  banish  them  from  their  native 
homes,  while  bestowing  upon  them  their  own  mastery.  The 
war  in  Florida  arose  from  other  and  more  natural  causes, 
which  the  philosophical  mind  of  Miss  Martineau  would  have 
soon  enough  ferreted  out,  if  the  demon  of  abolition  had  not 
possessed  her  brain,  and  too  entirely  darkened  her  vision. 
The  hunting  grounds  of  the  red  men  were  too  much  circum- 
scribed, by  the  gradual  gathering  of  the  whites  around  them, 
to  permit  them  to  procure  sustenance  after  their  ordinary 
habits.  The  game  had  become  scarce,  and,  as  they  had  not 
yet  been  taught  the  first  lesson  of  Christianity,  as  it  is  the 
first  decree  of  God — namely,  the  necessity  of  labor — they 
were  half  the  time  in  a  state  of  starvation.  Their  contact 
with  the  civilized  must  always  result — as  such  contact  has 
everywhere  resulted — either  in  their  subjection  as  inferiors,  or 
their  extermination.  Their  only  safety  will  be  found  in  their 
enslavement,  or  in  their  removal  to  a  region  where  the  hunt- 
ing grounds  are  open  and  uncircumscribed.  They  must  perish 
or  remove,  unless  they  conform  to  the  established  usages  of 
the  States  in  which  they  linger,  and  fall  into  the  customs  of 
the  superior  people.  The  government  of  the  United  States 
has  aimed  at  their  removal  for  many  years ;  but  this  removal 
has  been  resisted  in  various  quarters,  and  chiefly  by  the  in- 
strumentality of  those  universal  philanthropists,  who  are  now 
known  as  abolitionists.  They  were  strenuous  in  opposing  it, 
and  did  not  confine  their  opposition  to  the  councils  of  our 
own  nation.  They  preached  resistance  to  the  Indians  them- 
selves, and  encouraged  them  to  stay  where  they  were,  and 
starve.  Their  eloquence,  iu  these  exhortations,  overlooked 
the  absolute  necessities  of  the  Indian  ;  and  was  chiefly  devoted 
to  the  imaginary  privations  consequent  upon  his  removal. 


240  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

They  dwelt  pathetically  upon  the  loss  of  his  home,  and  his 
banishment  from  his  forefathers'  graves  ;  and,  in  dilating  upon 
privations  such  as  these,  they  entirely  forgot  all  the  more 
serious  evils  arising  from  the  state  of  sufferance  in  which  he 
dwelt,  in  an  abridged  territory,  and  under  a  government  whose 
regulations,  his  necessities,  and  his  ignorance  alike,  drove  him 
momently  to  violate.  He  must  either  beg,  steal  or  starve. 
In  seeking  to  avoid  the  latter,  the  commission  of  crime  is  fre- 
quent. The  red  men  become  embroiled  with  the  whites,  whom 
they  despoil  of  their  hogs  and  cattle,  and  whatever  else  they 
can  lay  their  hands  on  ;  they  refuse  obedience  to  the  authori- 
ties they  offend  ;  they  fly  from  the  officers  of  justice,  and  seek 
for  shelter  in  their  wild  recesses,  their  swamps  and  everglades. 
They  are  pursued,  and,  from  their  refractoriness,  are  treated, 
naturally  enough,  as  outlaws,  by  their  pursuers.  The  num- 
bers, on  both  sides,  accumulate ;  and  blood  is  shed,  and  can 
only  cease  to  be  shed. in  the  utter  extermination  of  the  infe- 
rior class.  To  avoid  this  dreadful  necessity,  the  government 
has  been  laboring  to  remove  them  to  other  homes,  and  a 
wider  extent  of  country,  where  they  may  follow,  without  let 
or  hindrance,  the  customs  which  they  like.  And  this  removal 
is  but  a  small  and  partial  evil,  in  comparison  with  the  many 
evils  which  must  follow  upon  their  stay.  Our  homes  depend, 
for  their  comfort,  not  so  much  upon  the  associations  of  our 
childhood,  as  upon  their  fitness  for  our  mental  and  moral  con- 
dition. Men — civilized  men — whose  sensibilities  upon  such 
matters  are  duly  educated,  and  made  fine  and  susceptible  by 
the  institutions  of  society,  daily  dispose  of  their  dwellings, 
and  depart  into  strange  lands  ;  and  while  we  doubt  not  that 
all  men  must  feel  a  sense  of  regret  at  parting  from  the  homes 
of  infancy  and  youth,  we  should  be  paying  but  a  sorry  tribute 
to  their  manliness,  and  proper  nature,  in  regarding  this  as  a 
sore  and  overwhelming  evil.  The  Indian,  too,  of  all  people 


THE    MORALS    OF   SLAVERY.  241 

in  the  world,  is  the  last  to  feel  much,  if  any  regret,  at  such  a 
necessity.  It  is  no  great  sacrifice  for  him.  From  the  moment 
that  his  eyes  opened  upon  the  light,  he  has  been  a  wanderer. 
He  has  never  known  a  fixed  abode,  until  the  appearance  and 
settlement  of  the  whites  formed  a  point  of  attraction,  to 
which,  with  all  the  consciousness  of  his  inferiority,  he  tacitly 
inclined.  His  fathers  before  him  were  wanderers,  and,  ac- 
cording to  their  histories,  their  whole  lives  have  been  passed 
in  bearing  their  stakes  from  the  wilderness  to  the  seaside,  and 
from  the  seaside  to  the  wilderness  again.  The  habitations  of 
the  Indians  prove  all  this.*  During  the  space  of  three  hun- 
dred years — the  time  of  our  acquaintance  with  them — they 
have  made  no  improvements ;  they  have  built  no  house  of 
sufficient  comfort  or  importance  to  be  occupied  by  two  suc- 
cessive generations.  Their  habitations  have  been  such,  only, 
as  they  could  readily  remove,  or  leave,  without  loss,  to  the 
use  of  some  succeeding  occupant.  Their  towns — if  the  col- 
lections of  filthy  wigwams  in  which  they  fester  and  breed 
vermin  may  be  called  towns — are  few,  far  between,  and  the 
men  seldom  in  them.  Their  women  have  ever  been  their 
drudges,  in  the  most  degrading  slavery — brutes  denied  in- 

*  The  account  which  the  aborigines  gave  of  themselves  to  the  first 
discoverers,  represented  them  to  be  the  invaders  of  a  people  far  superior 
to  themselves  in  civilization,  which  their  greater  numbers  and  savage 
ferocity  destroyed.  This  was  the  boast  of  the  Indian  to  the  while  man. 
The  antique  remains  of  works,  fortifications,  temples,  and  other  fabrics, 
which  are  dispersed  all  over  the  country,  confirm  this  intelligence,  with- 
out regarding  the  obvious  iact  that  these  were  remains  utterly  beyond 
the  ability  of  the  Indians  10  erect.  This  history,  we  may  add,  is  the 
history  of  the  world,  as  we  read  it  everywhere.  The  moment  that 
civilization  pauses  in  her  conquests,  she  is  overrun  by  the  savage.  She 
cannot  rest  in  her  conquests.  She  must  conquer,  not  only  to  improve 
the  savage,  but  to  save  herself.  Let  her  pause,  with  an  inferior  tribe 
beside  her,  not  acknowledging  her  sway,  and  she  is  overthrown. 
21 


242  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

diligence,  and  slaves  to  the  most  vicious  caprices  of  their 
masters,  without  restraint  or  redress,  unless  it  comes  in  the 
sudden  vengeance  of  some  irritable  relative.  Such  a  people 
have  no  idea  of  home.  That  is  their  best  home  which  gives 
them  elbow  room,  and  full  forests  in  which  to  hunt.  The 
Florida  war  sprung  entirely  from  want  of  such  freedom,  and 
we  may  add,  that  most  of  our  Indian  wars  have  arisen  from 
the  same  single  cause.  The  philanthropists  who  would  keep 
them  in  a  region  in  which  they  have  no  resources  of  life,  are 
those  only  to  whom  such  wars  are  to  be  ascribed.  Still,  we 
do  not  deny  the  wanton  injustice,  and  the  occasional  cruelty, 
of  the  base  white  borderer.  It  would  be  wonderful,  indeed, 
if  such  people  did  forbear  the  commission  of  injustice.  Their 
labors  are  not  of  such  a  sort  as  would  lead  us  to  hope  for 
their  forbearance  ;  and  the  necessities  of  the  savage  give  them 
but  too  frequent  provocation  for  the  exercise  of  their  unre- 
strained and  brutal  propensities.  The  true  evil  is  in  the  con- 
dition of  things  which  keeps  the  two  races  in  contact,  yet  not 
in  connection.  The  inferior  people  must  fly  from  the  presence, 
or  perish  before  the  march  of  approaching  civilization. 

I  come  now  to  a  point  upon  which  the  abolitionists,  and 
the  Northern  people  universally,  are  more  profoundly  igno- 
rant than  upon  almost  any  other  subject.  This  is  the  as- 
sumed greater  dependence  of  the  South,  than  any  other  sec- 
tion, upon  the  confederacy.  Miss  Martineau,  in  this  matter, 
is  the  unreluctant  mouth-piece  of  their  crudities.  Of  course, 
the  weakness  of  the  South,  in  these  relations,  is  due  to  slavery. 

"  In  case  of  war,"  says  the  good  lady,  "  they  might  be  only 
too  happy  if  their  slaves  did  run  away,  instead  of  rising  up 
against  them  at  home." 

The  wish  is  very  much  the  father  of  the  thought.*     Per- 

*I  step!,  not  long  since,  into  one  of  the  book  shops  of  Broadway, 
and,  in  a  new  magazine  lying  upon  the  counter,  read  a  letter  from  a 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  243 

haps  there  is  nothing  in  the  world   that  the  people  of  the 
South  less  apprehend,  than  this,  of  the  insurrection  of  their 
negroes.     The  attempts  of  this  people  at  this  object  have  been 
singularly  infrequent,  and  perhaps  never  would   be  dreamed 
of,  were  their  bad  passions  not  appealed  to  by  the  abolitionists 
or  their  emissaries.     They  are  not  a  warlike  people ;  are,  in- 
deed, rather  a  timid  race;  have  no  concert,  no  system,  and 
are  too  well  content  with  their  condition,  to  the  great  grief  of 
such    philosophers    as    Dr.  Lardner,  to  desire    any  change. 
And  this   has   been  the  case  from  the   beginning.     I  must 
remind  these  reformars  of  a  history  which  will  scarcely  add 
strength  to  their  convictions.     The  slave  population  in  Caro- 
lina was  quite  equal  to   its  white  population  in  1776.     That 
conflict  was  one  which  obviously  held  forth  the  bast  opportu- 
nities for  an  outbreak,  had  the  slaves  desired   it.     The  British 
authorities   were  not  unfriendly  to  any  proceedings,  on   their 
part,  which  would  have  distressed   their  owners.     They  did 
encourage  them  to  take  up  arms,  and  undertook  to  form  se- 
parate bands  of  negro  troops,  to  uniform  them  in  their  scarlet, 
and  furnish  them  with  arms ;  yet  succeeded  in  persuading 
only  a  single  regiment  to  their  ranks.     The   entire  mass  of 
the  slave  population  adhered,  with  unshaken  fidelity,  to  their 
masters — numb3rs  followed  or  accompanied  them  to  the  field, 
and  fought  at  their  sides,  while    the   greater  body  faithfully 
pursued  their  labors  on  the  plantations — never  deserting  them 
in  trial,  danger  or  privation,  and   exhibiting,  amidst  every  re- 
visitor  in  Charleston,  who  stated  that,  such  was  the  apprehension  en- 
tertained of  slave  insurrections,  that  all  the  houses  are  enclosed  with 
brick  or  stone  walls  !     There  are  not  half  a  dozen  such  walls  in  the 
city.     The  enclosures  are  mostly  of  wood,  and  such  as  a  strong  man 
would  hew  down  with  an  axe  in  half  a  dozen  strokes.    But  the  absurd- 
becomes  most  intelligible,  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  slaves  of 
each  household  are  lodgers  within  each  enclosure. 


244  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

verse  of  fortune,  that  respect,  that  propriety  of  moral,  which 
did  not  presume  in  adversity,  and  took  no  license  from  the 
disorder  of  the  times ;  and  this  decorum  and  fidelity  were 
shown  at  a  time  when,  to  the  presence  of  an  overwhelmir  g  for- 
eign enemy,  was  added  the  greater  curse  of  a  reckless  and 
unsparing  civil  war,  before  their  eyes,  and  among  their  own 
masters.  Perhaps  the  whole  world  cannot  exhibit  a  history 
more  remarkable,  or  more  worthy  of  grateful  remembrance, 
than  the  conduct  of  the  serviles  of  the  South,  during  the  war 
of  the  revolution.  The  few  who  were  incorporated  in  the 
ranks  of  the  British  were  of  little  service,  behaved  with  no 
courage,  and  were  soon  dispersed  or  cut  to  pieces.  A\  here 
they  survived,  they  probably  shared  the  fate  of  thousands 
more,  whom  the  enemy  found  it  much  easier  to  convert  into 
slaves,  in  the  West  Indies,  than  soldiers  in  the  Carolinas. 
This  history  ought  surely  to  suffice,  to  settle  any  doubts, 
or  hopes,  of  our  philanthropic  brethren,  in  regard  to  our  se- 
curities on  this  head.  Of  the  remaining  causes  of  Southern 
insecurity  from  foreign  war,  it  is  perhaps  quite  enough  to 
state  that  the  people  of  the  South  are  born  to  the  use  of 
arms,  and  are  fearless  in  the  employment  of  them.  They  have 
never  received  any  help  from  the  North,  at  any  period  of  their 
fortunes,  either  before  or  since  the  formation  of  the  confederacy. 
They  have,  on  the  contrary,  frequently  sent  their  troops  to  the 
succor  of  the  Northern  States.  In  the  recent  war  with  Mexi- 
co, of  the  volunteers  in  the  conquest  of  that  country,  under 
Taylor  and  Scott,  their  contribution,  in  proportion  to  that  of 
the  North,  was  as  two  to  one.  The  people  of  the  Southern 
States  are  emphatically  a  military  people.  The  very  fact  that 
the  tillage  of  the  earth  is  confided  mostly  to  an  inferior  race, 
affords  them  leisure  for  war,  for  constant  exercise  with  wea- 
pons, and  on  horseback.  The  point,  however,  need  not  be 
pursued.  Enough,  that  the  people  of  the  South  are  conscious 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  245 

of  their  strength,  and  entertain  no  sort  of  doubt  of  their 
capacity  to  maintain  themselves  equally  against  the  danger 
from  within  and  the  foe  without. 

I  have  now  gone  through  most  of  the  points,  in  these  vol- 
umes, which,  directly  or  indirectly,  affect  the  moral  and  the 
fact,  in  the  case  of  South-Carolina.  I  have  confined  myself 
mostly  to  the  one  State,  as  better  prepared  to  speak  as  a  wit- 
ness on  the  subject,  and  satisfied  that  the  argument,  in  the 
case  of  one,  will  apply  more  or  less  thoroughly  to  that  of  all 
the  slave  States.  It  would  have  been  quite  easy  to  expose 
many  other  errors  in  these  books,  relating  to  the  whole  coun- 
try, the  result  of  Miss  Martineau's  self-conceit,  her  monomania, 
and  her  habit  of  generalizing  from  imperfect  and  inferior 
sources  of  fact ;  but  this  sort  of  labor  is  not  very  grateful, 
and  the  game  would  be  scarce  worth  the  candle.  I  must 
leave  the  task  to  other  pens,  more  able  and  ready,  in  the  re- 
gions which  she  has  wronged  by  her  report  I  commend  it  to 
them.  A  book  like  that  of  this  lady,  who  appears  to  think, 
and  certainly  labors  to  do  so,  after  a  fashion  of  her  own,  is 
the  proper  sort  of  work  for  dissection.  She  arrays  before  us 
all  our  alleged  offences,  and  thus  makes  it  easy  to  turn  at  once 
to  page  and  chapter,  when  we  would  make  up  the  issue  with 
her.  I  had  marked  sundry  little  anecdotes  which  she  gives 
us,  which,  true  in  themselves,  are  yet  false,  in  consequence  of 
her  employment  of  them  for  the  illustration  of  the  truth  in 
general.  But,  as  they  involve  no  principles  likely  to  affect 
the  question,  and  are  so  commonly  in  conflict  with  other  mat- 
ters which  the  same  pages  develope,  we  may  leave  it  to  the 
reader  to  detect  and  contrast  the  examples  for  himself.  They 
will  do  no  harm,  even  if  they  escape  all  objection.  Indeed, 
the  book  itself  can  do  no  harm.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  half 
disposed  to  think  it  may  be  of  some  benefit,  if  it  brings  us 
only  to  the  knowledge  of  some  of  our  errors.  Like  the  spite- 
21* 


246  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

ful  octavo  of  Mrs.  Trollope,  it  tells  us  an  occasional  home 
truth,  North  and  South,  which  we  may  ponder,  and  upon 
which  we  may  improve.  And  yet  there  may  be  some  unkind- 
ness,  in  requiring  the  reader  to  toil  through  this  weary  wilder- 
ness of  chaff,  in  the  hope  of  such  small  wheat  as  it  promises. 
Miss  Martineau  is  a  monstrous  proser.  She  has  a  terrible 
power  of  words,  and  is  tyrannical  as  she  is  powerful,  in  the 
use  of  them.  We  have  no  doubt  she  is  herself  free  from 
stain  or  reproach  ;  but  her  tongue  is  wretchedly  incontinent. 
She  is  probably  one  of  those  persons  who  never  believe  that 
they  have  been  talking  all  the  while.  She  declaims  constant- 
ly, and  is  forever  searching  after  exceptions.  She  scruples  at 
no  game,  fears  no  opponent,  and,  whether  the  meat  be  washed 
or  unwashed,  hawk  or  heron,  it  is  all  the  same  to  her.  She 
discusses  the  rights  of  man,  and — heaven  save  the  mark  ! — 
the  rights  of  women  too,  with  her  chambermaid,  when  she 
cannot  corner  a  senator.  Smart  exceedingly,  well  practised 
in  the  minor  economies  of  society,  and  having  at  her  tongue's 
end  all  the  standards  of  value  in  the  grain,  cotton,  beef  and 
butter  markets,  she  does  not  scruple  to  apply  them  to  the 
more  mysterious  involutions  of  the  mind  and  society.  It  is 
but  too  evident  that,  with  all  her  cleverness,  she  lacks  that 
more  advantageous  wisdom  which  begins  with  humility.  She 
is  too  dogmatical  ever  to  be  wise.  She  comes  to  teach,  not 
to  learn.  She  gets  nothing  from  her  hearer,  for  she  does  not 
hear  him.  If  she  listens,  it  is  simply  because  she  is  confident 
that  her  answer  is  ready.  That  she  has  never  listened,  while 
in  America,  is  evident  from  these  volumes  ;  though  I  doubt 
not  that  a  great  many  words  have  gone  through  her  trumpet. 
Miss  Martineau  came  to  America  with  two  or  three  texts  in 
her  memory,  which  she  assumed  to  be  the  only  right  stand- 
ards by  which  our  people  were  to  be  tried  arid  their  institu- 
tions judged.  These  texts  are  so  many  broad  and  bold  as- 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  247 

sumptions,  that  have  obtained  currency,  rather  in  consequence 
of  the  audacity  by  which  they  have  been  urged,  and  perhaps 
by  some  latent  vitality,  the  result  of  partial  truth  within 
them,  than  because  of 'their  complete  and  triumphant  endu- 
rance of  the  tests  of  experience  and  severe  analysis.  With 
her,  as  with  most  European  philosophers  of  her  order,  they 
are  assumptions  only — specious  or  imposing — which  have 
been  taken  on  trust;  according,  perhaps,  with  the  particular 
temperament  of  the  individual.  To  a  woman  of  the  bold, 
free,  masculine  nature  of  Miss  Martineau,  impatient  of  the 
restraints  of  her  sex,  and  compelled  to  seek  her  distinction  in 
fields  which  women  are  rarely  permitted  to  penetrate,  demo- 
cracy is  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  social  philosophies,  as 
conservatism  must  be  necessarily  the  most  offensive.  With 
her,  the  doctrine  of  majorities  is  the  voice  of  God.  She  has 
a  fast  faith  in  the  proverb.  The  will  of  the  majority,  she  in- 
sists, will  be  right — right,  always,  in  the  end — a  faith  which 
we  should  not  care  to  dispute,  since  we  can  readily  conceive 
of  a  people,  after  having  boxed  the  compass  in  experiments, 
and  bruised  its  shins,  or  broken  its  limbs,  over  a  thousand 
errors,  arriving,  at  last,  at  the  goal  which  it  had  never  conjec- 
tured, and  had  not  the  capacity  to  seek  or  to  foresee.  Let 
"  the  end"  be  sufficiently  remote,  and  we  hardly  question  but 
that,  in  God's  mercy,  all  his  scattered  flocks  will  find  their 
way  into  the  saving  fold.  But  need  this  be  a  matter  of 
chance,  and  need  there  be  any  such  long  delay  about  it? 
May  not  the  thousand  sorrows,  trials,  hurts  and  bruises  of  the 
race  be  lessened,  and  the  road  to  right  be  shorten  id,  under 
other  auspices  ?  Are  not  the  delay  and  the  suffering  the 
strict  consequence  of  fallowing  such  blind  guides  as  our  own 
capricious  passions,  headlong  will,  fierce  impulse,  and  impu- 
dent presumption — following  the  multitude,  in  short,  to  do 
evil ;  and  has  not  God  appointed  safer  guides,  specially  gifted 


248  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

beings,  whom  we  were  wiser  to  seek  and  follow,  and  who 
would  conduct  us  to  the  great  object  of  our  pilgrimage,  at  no 
such  peril,  and  with  no  such  delay  as  now  attends  the  progress  ? 
I  confess  that,  though  not  unwilling  to  suppose  the  majority 
may  be  right  in  the  end,  I  am  half  disposed  to  prefer  a  mi- 
nority that  is  riyht  in  the  beginning.  But  that  would  not 
suit  Miss  Martineau,  who  prefers  to  work  out  her  own  pro- 
blems, at  any  cost,  so  that  she  can  do  the  work  for  herself. 
She  takes  this  doctrine  of  majorities  lovingly  in  hand,  and, 
applying  it  to  sundry  cases  in  her  own  mind — to  which  it  is 
not  customary  to  apply  it  in  America — she  is  alarmed  at  the 
annoying  inconsistency  which  follows.  Hence  her  wild  chap- 
ter about  the  "  Rights  of  Women,"  her  groans  and  invectives 
because  of  their  exclusion  from  the  offices  of  state,  the  right 
of  suffrage,  the  exercise  of  political  authority.  In  all  this, 
the  error  of  the  declaimer  consists  in  the  very  first  movement 
of  the  mind.  "The  "Rights  of  Women'1'1  may  all  be  con- 
ceded to  the  sex,  yet  the  rights  of  men  withheld  from  them. 
Here  is  all  the  difficulty.  The  knot  of  the  subject  lies  in  this 
little  respect;  and  the  untying  of  it,  by  no  A'exandrine  pro- 
cess— we  had  almost  said  Csesarian — may  enable  us  still  to 
insist  upon  our  American  understanding  of  the  doctrine  of 
majorities,  yet  leave  the  tender  sex  without  any  legitimate 
cause  of  complaint.  Certainly,  if  mere  numbers  are  to  be 
considered  the  proper  sources  of  power  in  a  state,  the  infe- 
rence follows  that  women  must  have  a  share  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  affairs.  The  fact  that  they  are  not,  in  a  country 
which  yet  professes  to  be  ruled  by  a  majority,  should  Iwe 
prompted  Miss  Marlineau  to  a  closer  inquiry  into  the  source 
of  the  peculiar  rights  of  the  majority.  It  is  important  to 
know  what  was  the  peculiar  sense,  on  this  subject,  of  the 
founders  of  our  laws,  customs,  and  constitution.  We  are  in 
possession  of  a  good  many  very  subtle  and  ingenious  exposi- 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  249 

tions  of  the  secret  principle  by  which  the  larger  claims  to  rule 
the  smaller  body.  But  I  doubt  the  whole  of  them,  and  am 
not  sure  that  the  wtyjle  moral  of  it  is  not  an  agreeable  political 
fiction,  by  which  to  save  trouble,  avoid  difficulty,  escape  dan- 
ger, and  have  leisure  for  more  personal  matters  ;  just  as  the 
elevation  of  a  pretty  young  woman  to  the  throne  of  England, 
following  the  prescribed  order  of  events,  prevents  a  constant 
recurrence  of  struggles,  ending  in  bloody  wars,  with  regard 
to  the  disputed  succession.  There  must  be,  for  the  general 
safety,  some  rule  on  these  subjects,  of  general  recognition,  and 
this  of  the  majority  is  most  in  accordance  with  the  genius,  as  it 
is  the  preference,  of  the  people.  There  may  be  found  a  sub- 
stantial reason  for  it  at  bottom,  which  may  be  suggestive 
to  Miss  Marti neau  why  women  are  not  to  be  taken  into  the 
account.  The  truth  is,  the  doctrine  of  majorities  simply  de- 
termines the  presence  of  physical  power,  displayed  by  simple 
arithmetic,  by  which  we  obviate  any  necessity  for  the  applica- 
tion of  the  brute  force,  when  we  assert  our  rights,  and  seek 
their  exercise  by  swaying  over  the  rights  of  others.  The 
majority  tells  us  where  the  brute  force  lies,  and  we  submit  to 
it,  with  what  philosophy  we  can,  in  all  cases  where  the  au- 
thority which  governs,  entails  upon  us  no  such  evils  as  would 
follow  from  our  physical  struggle  to  shake  it  off.  Whenever 
the  wrongs  and  injustice  of  the  majority  pass  beyond  the 
ordinary  bounds  of  patience,  it  is  resisted,  and  the  ultima 
ratio  is  resorted  to  by  the  minority,  either  in  hope  or  despe- 
ration. There  is  no  abstract  charm,  in  mere  numbers,  to 
compel  the  submission  of  those  who  are  wronged,  or  who 
think  themselves  so.  But  when  it  is  known  that  votes  repre- 
sent men — able-bodied  and  armed  men — the  case  is  different. 
We  at  once  see  the  enemy  with  which  we  have  to  contend, 
and  the  superior  capacities  which  he  possesses  of  coercion. 
The  doctrine  of  majorities  is,  in  truth,  no  new  doctrine.  It 


250  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

is  as  old  as  the  hills.  The  only  difference  between  times  past 
and  times  present,  consists^  simply,  in  the  superior  facilities 
which,  in  modern  times,  we  enjoy,  of  determining  where  the 
power  lies,  without  any  resort  to  blows.  It  is  more  easy, 
now-a-days,  to  compute  the  strength  of  the  opposition,  than 
it  was  in  the  distant  periods  when  war  was  almost  invariably 
the  result  of  ignorance  on  both  hands ;  and  never  was  the 
doctrine  more  clearly  illustrated  than  in  the  wars  of  Napoleon 
Bonaparte,  whose  many  successes  were  the  sheer  result  of  his 
attention  to  this  fact.  His  mode  of  concentrating  his  force 
at  a  given  point,  in  advance  of  his  enemy,  was  the  true  secret 
of  his  wonderful  victories.  Like  all  dexterous  politicians,  his 
aim  was  to  be  always  in  a  majority.  Minorities  would  never 
submit  to  the  frequent  injustice  of  majorities,  but  that  they 
well  know  that  the  court  of  dernier  resort  is  one  just  as  little 
likely  to  give  them  redress,  as  the  power  which  robs  them  of 
their  rights  by  a  mere  resort  to  the  numeration  table. 

It  is  only  one  of  many  of  the  subjects  of  disquiet  which 
Miss  Marti neau  finds,  when  she  compares  the  working  of  our 
system  with  its  prescribed  standards.  The  governing  princi- 
ples of  our  political  condition,  and  the  laws  and  practice  un- 
der them,  she  finds  in  frequent  conflict ;  and  her  trouble  is 
that  of  the  European  generally.  One  of  her  points  of  diffi- 
culty is  in  the  famous  passage  in  the  declaration  of  American 
independence,  which  announces  that  "  all  men  are  created 
equal."  The  declaration  has  been  one  of  long  dispute,  with 
all  sorts  of  philosophers,  and  the  decision  upon  the  vexed 
question  is  not  likely  to  be  made  in  our  day.  Our  excellent 
forefathers,  when  they  pronounced  this  truth  to  be  self-evident, 
were  not  in  the  best  mood  to  become  philosophers,  however 
well  calculated  to  approve  themselves  the  best  of  patriots. 
They  were  much  excited,  nay,  rather  angry,  in  the  days  of 
the  "  declaration,"  and  hence  it  is  that  what  they  alleged  to 


THE    MORALS    OF   SLAVERY.  251 

be  self  evident  then,  is,  at  this  time,  when  we  are  compara- 
tively cool,  a  source  of  very  great  doubt  and  disputation. 
But,  the  truth  is,  the  phrase  was  simply  a  finely  sounding 
one,  significant  of  that  sentimental  French  philosophy,  then 
so  current,  which  was  destined  to  bear  such  sanguinary  fruits 
in  after  periods.  Jefferson  inclined  to  that  school  of  philoso- 
phers, so  long  as  its  sentimentality  constituted  its  chief  cha- 
racteristic, and  before  the  paradisaical  fancies  of  which  it  was 
so  prolific  had  been  literally  swallowed  up  in  a  sea  of  human 
blood.  How  could  Rousseau,  or  Jefferson,  determine  how 
men  were  created — in  what  degrees — in  what  equality  ?  The 
only  record  which  we  have,  shows  us,  under  the  ordinary  in- 
terpretation of  the  churchmen,  that  there  was  never  but  a 
single  man  created  by  the  hands  of  God ;  the  rest  were  born, 
under  laws  such  as  prevail  uniformly  through  the  animal 
world — in  different  climates,  different  realms,  under  different 
conditions,  victims  to  poverty,  to  exposure,  to  want,  to  dis- 
ease, or  pets  of  vanity,  and  pride,  and  opulence — all  differing, 
everywhere,  in  health,  strength,  size,  circumstance — under  no 
uniformity  of  culture,  training,  education  ; — as  unequal  a  scat- 
tered family — color,  race,  tribe,  feature — as  if  it  had  been  the 
studious  purpose  of  the  Deity  that  there  should  be  as  great  a 
variety  in  the  human  family,  as  among  the  brute  and  vegeta- 
ble nations.  And  I  have  no  doubt  that  such  really  was  his 
plan,  conforming  to  all  the  analogies  in  nature.  But  the 
statement  of  the  case,  as  made  in  the  "  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence," is,  in  its  very  nature,  wholly  indeterminable.  No- 
body, now-a-days,  is  born  naked.  Indeed,  man  was  hardly 
ever,  at  any  period,  in  what  we  describe  as  a  state  of  nature. 
The  artifices  of  a  social  condition  were  woven  about  him  from 
the  earliest  periods,  and  the  essential  inequalities  of  such 
conditions,  in  differing  societies,  must  always  have  had  the 
effect  of  establishing  corresponding  inequalities  among  the 


252  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

individuals  composing  tribes  and  families,  even  if  it  had  not 
been  the  benevolent  purpose  of  God  that  such  inequalities 
should  constitute  an  essential  feature  of  his  plan  of  creation. 
But,  be  sure  that  our  good  fathers,  in  the  revolution,  never 
contemplated  so  wide  a  survey  of  the  subject,  when  they  in- 
sisted upon  the  perfect  equality  of  the  sons  of  men.  They 
made  the  assertion  in  a  more  limited  sense,  evidently  think- 
ing not  so  much  of  the  accouchement  of  Eve,  as  of  the  de- 
livery of  the  American  people.  Their  assertion  meant  no 
more  than  this:  "You,  George  the  Third,  whom  we  think  a 
tyrant,  have  presumed  to  call  us,  John  Hancock,  Samuel 
Adams,  Thomas  Jefferson,  etc.,  traitors  and  rebels.  Now, 
look  you,  George,  we  owe  you  no  allegiance.  We  are  as 
good  men  as  you,  any  day.  We  are  your  equals.  God 
created,  or  made,  us  so.  Stand  up  and  compare  with  us,  if 
you  dare.  Compare  with  us  your  best  men — your  Norths, 
and  Butes,  and  Germaines — and  let  us  see  where  your  supe- 
riority lies.  Physically,  we  are  fully  your  match ;  morally 
and  intellectually,  your  superiors.  And  so  will  our  people 
compare  with  yours,  and  with  the  whole  world.  God  has 
endowed  them,  equally  with  your  people,  with  the  capacity  to 
govern  and  control  themselves."  And  this  was  the  amount 
ot  it,  and  such  was  the  argument,  as  against  a  rival  people. 
Within  their  own  tribes,  they  no. doubt  held  the  farther  doc- 
trine, that  all  men  were  equal  in  the  sight  of  God — that  is, 
that  he  was  incapable  of  partialities.  He  had  made  them 
equally  his  care — he  had  decreed  their  equal  accountability  ; 
and,  by  proper  analogy,  the  authors  of  the  declaration  might 
well  declare,  in  behalf  of  the  equal  recognition,  by  the  laws 
and  government,  of  the  claims  of  the  citizen,  each  in  his 
place  ;  each,  while  he  obeyed  the  laws  and  complied  with 
his  public  duties,  having  an  equal  right  with  his  neighbor  to 
the  protection  of  society,  in  his  life  and  liberty,  his  pursuits 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  253 

and  his  possessions.  We  are  not  to  subject  such  a  perform- 
ance as  the  declaration  of  independence  to  a  too  critical  scru- 
tiny, in  respect  to  its  generalizations.  These  are  put  briefly, 
and  the  circumstances  of  the  revolutionary  movement  were 
such  as  required  that  they  should  be  put  strongly.  It  was 
necessary  that  they  should  be  pronounced  with  emphasis 
since  the  revolution  was  an  event  which,  while  it  fixed  the 
attention  of  the  civilized  world,  required  that  it  should  also 
compel  its  popular  sympathies.  It  was,  perhaps,  something 
of  policy  that  dictated  the  employment  of  phrases  which 
should  particularly  commend  it  to  the  French  philosophers  of 
that  day  ;  and  I  have  no  question  but  that  many  of  the 
statesmen  who  signed  the  paper  were  thus  made  the  endorsers 
of  sundry  sentiments  which  they  never  swallowed  at  all.  The 
Adamses,  of  Massachusetts,  could  not  well  have  bolted  the 
doctrine  of  universal  equality  ;  while  it  is  very  certain  that 
the  aristocrats  of  Carolina,  in  that  day,  must,  if  they  did 
swallow  it,,  have  done  so  with  monstrous  wry  faces.  But  the 
doubtful  matter  did  not  then  provoke  a  question,  vsince  no- 
body gave  it,  then,  any  construction  more  authoritative  than, 
that  which  I  have  here  assigned  it. 

How  should  they,  indeed,  unless  blinder  than  the  beasts 
that  perish,  with  staring  proofs  to  the  contrary  surrounding 
them,  even  while  they  deliberated  and  wrote  ?  That  God 
has  not  created  men  alike,  or  equal,  whether  morally  or  physi- 
cally, is  not  less  notorious,  than  it  is  in  perfect  harmony  with 
all  his  other  creations.  The  most  striking  development,  every 
where,  in  and  about  the  beautiful  world  which  we  inhabit,  is 
in  striking  proof  of  his  purpose  to  crown  it  with  as  much 
diversity  as  life.  Nothing,  indeed,  can  be  more  remarkable, 
or  more  delightful,  to  the  mind  and  eyp,  surveying  the  works 
of  the  Creator,  than  the  endless  varieties,  and  the  boundless 
22 


254  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

inequalities,  of  his  creations.  Not  only  is  no  void  unfilled, 
but  no  void  is  filled  in  the  same  manner.  Size,  form,  color, 
order,  power,  in  ail  living  objects,  are  graduated  endowments, 
which  enable  one  to  fly,  while  another  creeps  ;  one  to  dilate 
in  grandeur,  while  another  trembles  in  insignificance  ;  one  to 
loom  out,  like  some  bright  cre.-itnre  of  the  elements,  while 
another  nestles,  with  sombre  garment,  in  a  corresponding 
shadow.  Whether  we  survey  the  globe  which  we  inhabit,  the 
sky  which  canopies,  the  seas  which  surround  us,  or  the  sys- 
tems which  give  us  light  and  loveliness,  we  are  perpetually 
called  upon  to  admire  that  infinite  variety  of  the  Creator, 
•which  nothing  seems  to  stale.  The  stars  are  lovely  in  their 
inequalities;  the  hills,  the  trees,  the  rivers  and  the  seas;  and 
it  is  from  their  very  inequalities  that  their  harmonics  arise. 
Were  it  otherwise,  the  eye  would  be  pained  by  the  monotony 
of  the  prospect  everywhere.  As  it  is,  we  love  to  look  abroad 
upon  nature,  and  it  is  with  a  pleasure  no  less  sensible  than 
that  of  the  savage,  that  we  learn  "  how  to  name  the  bigger 
light,  and  how  the  less."  They  have  their  names,  only  as 
they  are  unlike  and  unequal.  It  is  because  these  shine  in 
their  places,  however  inferior  to  other  orbs,  that  they  are 
lovely.  They  are  all  unequal,  but  each  keeps  its  place;  and 
the  beauty  which  they  possess  and  yield  us,  results  entirely 
from  their  doing  so.  A  greater  philosopher  than  Thomas 
Jefferson — and  we  may  add,  after  a  long  interval,  Jen  my 
Eentham  and  Miss  Martineau — has  given  us  a  noble  passage, 
devoted  to  this  subject,  which  is  no  less  philosophical  than 
poetical — indeed,  it  is  the  true  poet,  alone,  v\ho  is  the  perfect 
and  universal  philosopher.  Let  us  hear  William  Shakspeare. 
I  quote  from  "Troilus  and  Cressida."  The  speech  is  made 
by  U.ysses,  at  the  close  of  the  seventh  year  of  the  siege  of 
Troy,  when  the  Greeks,  emulous  of  each  other,  each  strhing 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  255 

for  sway,  defeat  their  own  objects,  and  begin  to  despair  of  suc- 
cess in  the  continued  disappointments  of  the  war.  After  a 
prefatory  passage,  he  says  : 

"  Degree  being  visarded, 
The  unworfhiest  shows  as  fairly  in  the  mack. 
The  heavens  themselves,  the  planets,  and  this  centre. 
Observe  derive,  priority  and  place, 
Insisture,  course,  proportion,  season,  form, 
Office  and  custom,  in  all  line  of  order: 
And  therefore  is  the  glorious  planet,  Sol, 
In  noble  eminence  enthroned  and  sphered 
Amidst  thf  other,  whose  mcd'cinable  eye 
Correct-  the  ill  aspects  of  planet*  evil. 
And  po-ts,  like  the  commandment  of  a  king, 
Sans  check,  to  good  and  bad  :  But  when  the  planeft, 
In  evil  Mixture,  to  dx  order  wander, 
What  pln<jnes,  and  what  portent*  !      What  mutiny  ! 
WJmt  raging  of  the  sen  !  shaking  of  earth! 
Commotion  in  the  winds! — -frights,  changes,  horrors, 
Divert  and  crack,  rend  and  deracinate 
The  unit'/  and  married  calm  of  state** 
Quite  from,  their  fixture!     Oh,  when  degree  is  shak'd, 
Which  in  the  ladder  of  all  high  designs, 
The  enterprise  is  Kick  !     How  could  communities, 
Deg:ee-i  in  schools,  and  brotherhoods  in  cities, 
Peaceful  commerce  from  dividaMe  shores, 
The  •piimogeniiive  and  due  of  birth, 
Prerogative  of  age,  crowns,  sceptres,  laurels, 
Bittb;/  degree,  stand  in  authentic  place? 
Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string, 
And  hark!  what  discord  follows  !     Each  thing  meets 
In  mere  oppugn anry  :  The  bounded  waters 
Should  Lit  their  bo.-oms  higher  than  the  t-hores, 
And  make  a  sop  of  ail  this  SuliU  globe; 

*  Were   our  federal   union  what   it  should   be,  how  happily  would 
this  line  serve  as  the  motto  of  the  confederacy. 


256  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

Strength  should  be  lord  of  imbecility, 

And  the  rude  son  should  strike  his  father  dead ; 

Force  should  be  right  ;  or,  rather,  right  and  wrong 

(Between  whose  endless  jars  justice  resides) 

Should  lose  th/ir  names,  and  so  should  justice  loo. 

Then  everything  includes  itself  in  power, 

Power  into  will,  will  into  appetiie  ; 

And  appetite,  an  universal  wolf, 

So  doubly  seconded  by  will  and  power, 

Must  make,  perforce,  an  universal  prey, 

And  last,  eat  up  himself.     Great  Agamemnon, 

This  chaos,  when  degree  is  suffocate, 

Follows  the  choking."* 

*  Pope,  too,  not  to  ?pcak  of  a  hundred  others,  has  like  authority. 
"  Order  is  heaven's  first  law,  and  this  confest, 
Some  are,  and  must  be,  greater  than  the  rest." 

The  laws  of  society  arc  not  intended  to  disturb  the  natural  degrees  of 
humanity,  but  to  reconcile  them — to  make  them  consistent  with,  and 
dependent  upon,  one  another — not  to  make  the  butcher  a  judge,  or  the 
baker  a  president ;  but  to  protect  them,  according  to  their  claims  as 
butcher  and  baker.  Let  us  illustrate  these  distinctions  by  some  well 
known  cases.  In  a  claim  for  maintenance,  the  jury  will  inquire  what 
have  been  the  habits,  what  is  the  education,  the  tastes, sensibilities, etc., 
of  ihe  wife — in  an  action  for  damages,  in  slander,  the  words  being  the 
same,  the  jury  will  adjudge  the  amount  of  damages  according  to  the 
profession,  the  moral  and  intellectual  standing,  of  ihe  slandered  person  ; 
and  this,  too,  without  reflecting  that  it  is  wholly  in  defiance  of  ihis 
doctrine  of  u-iiversal  equality.  Yet  the  trial  by  jury  is,  perhaps  even 
beyond  that  of  representation — nay,  it  is  the  most  vital  sort  of  repre- 
sentation— the  most  conspicuous  showing  of  the  equal  rights  princi- 
ple. The  jury,  drawn  from  all  classes,  recognizes,  as  by  an  instinct, 
what  is  due  to  superior  social  position,  and',  just  in  degree  as  the  cha- 
racter is  eminent,  which  they  have  to  redress,  will  make  exemplary 
the  damages.  Here  is  the  whole  subject.  If  we  thus  guage  the  degree 
of  wrong  done  to  the  individual,  as  an  individual,  and  according  to  his 
special  claims,  it  is  because  we  have  first  recognized  the  individual 
superiority  of  his  rights. 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  2o7 

This  noble  passage  is  full  of  force  and  meaning.  It  does 
not  too  highly  rate,  to  society,  the  importance  of  order — de- 
gree— or  men,  as  well  as  things,  in  their  right  places.  All 
harmonies,  whether  in  the  moral  or  physical  worlds,  arise 
wholly  from  the  inequality  of  their  tones  and  aspects;  and  all 
things,  whether  in  art  or  nature,  social  or  political  systems, 
but  for  this  inequality,  would  give  forth  only  monotony  or 
discord.  That  equality  which  the  leveller  insists  upon  would 
result  in  general  confusion — the  breaking  down  of  every 
necessary  barrier  of  distinction — the  universal  forfeiture  of 
names  to  things.  There  could  be  no  hope,  there  would  be 
no  ambition,  where 

"  Degree,  being  vizarded, 
The  unworthiest  shows  as  i'uirly  " 

as  the  noblest.  The  motive  to  honorable  performance  would 
be  lost ;  and  that,  too,  without  lessening,  in  any  degree,  the 
scramble,  on  all  hands,  for  place  and  power.  The  very  na- 
ture of  man  is  in  conflict  with  this  law  of  universal  equa  i  y. 
His  perpetual,  and  proper  effort,  is  to  rise  honorably  above 
his  fellows.  It  is  thus,  and  thus  only,  that  he  asserts  an  in- 
dividuality of  character  and  endowment,  which  is  the  secret 
of  all  greatness,  whether  of  possession  or  performance.  It 
was  never  the  intention  of  the  fathers  of  the  country  to  de- 
stroy this  individuality,  to  deny  its  assertion,  or  to  bring  about 
that  dead  level  condition  in  society,  in  which  everything  but 
stagnates.  They  may  have  been  democrats ;  but  in  their 
notion  of  democracy,  it  was  not  level 'ing  in  its  character. 
Th'jy  rather  found  in  it  that  harmoi  y  of  relation  in  the  mo- 
ral world,  in  which  all  the  agents  and  operatives,  playing 
together,  wrought  out  from  their  correspondence  the  best 
music  of  humanity — that  music  which  builds  the  great  city, 
and  secures  peace  and  prosperity  to  man,  in  the  prosecution 
22* 


258  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

of  his  labors.  The  democracy  which  they  asserted  not  only 
recognized,  but  insisted  upon  inequalities — its  laws  declaring, 
not  the  fitness  of  all  men  for  any  place,  but  that  all  should 
be  secured  in  the  quiet  possession  of  their  individual  right  of 
place — that  there  should  be  no  usurpation — no  assertion  of 
power,  in  hostility  to  right — no  arrogant  assumption,  upon 
artificial  bases,  of  any  natural  right  of  one  class  of  perform- 
ers to  the  sway  over  another.  Neither  their  acts  nor  their 
declarations,  properly  read  and  understood,  asserted  anything 
beyond  the  simple  and  reasonable  law,  that  each  man  should 
enjoy  the  place  to  which  he  is  justly  entitled,  by  reason  of 
his  moral,  his  intellect,  his  strength,  or  his  resource.  Of  the 
thing  or  position  proper  to  him,  that  should  he  enjoy  without 
molestation.  Their  understanding,  and,  as  I  read  it,  their 
definition  of  true  liberty,  is  the  enjoyment  of  that  place  in 
society  to  which  our  moral  and  intellect  entitle  us,  and  of  the 
fruits  of  those  efforts  and  enterprises,  which  we  owe  to  our 
own  performances.  Here,  I  may  offer  a  few  brief  definitions, 
the  better  to  convey  my  notion  of  what  was  theirs. 

He  is  in  the  enjoyment  of  freedom,  whatever  his  condition, 
who  is  suffered  to  occupy  his  proper  place. 

He,  only,  is  the  slave,  who  is  forced  into  a  position  in  so- 
ciety which  is  below  the  claim  of  his  intellect  and  moral. 

He  cannot  but  be  a  tyrant — a,  wrong-deer  at  least — who 
forces  or  malces  his  way  into  a  position  for  which  his  moral 
is  unfitted  or  unprepared,  and  for  the  duties  of  which  his 
intellect  is  unprepared. 

That  such  were  the  definitions  of  democracy,  in  the  days 
of  the  declaration,  is  fairly  inferrible  from  the  fact,  that  they 
left  the  condition  of  their  social  world  precisely  as  they  found 
it.  They  might,  indeed,  have  held,  as  an  abstract  notion, 
that,  in  a  state  of  nature,  men  were  born  equal — equally 
helpless,  of  themselves,  certainly,  and  equally  dependant  and 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  259 

incapable — but  they  certainly  never  held  that  they  must  of 
right  continue  equal ;  nor  is  this  a  fair  conclusion,  from  what 
they  say.  The  birthright  of  man  may  be  alienated  in  a  thou- 
sand ways,  and  it  never  was  an  unqualified  one. 

Of  these  inalienable  rights  of  man, 

"  All  men,"  says  the  declaration  of  independence,  "  are 
created  equal ;  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  cer- 
tain inalienable  rights  ;  among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,"  etc. 

Now,  is  this  true,  in  whole  or  in  part  ?  Is  it  true  that  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  are  inalienable,  under 
the  practice  of  our  government,  or  any  other  ?  Do  we  not 
alienate  them  every  day  ?  Men  are  hung  for  rapes,  for  trea- 
son, for  murder,  for  forgery,  for  burglary,  and  many  other 
offences.  We  cast  them  into  prisons,  and  deprive  them  of 
their  liberty  ;  we  sue  them  in  the  courts,  and  take  from  them 
their  property.  On  what  pretence,  if  these  rights  of  man  be 
inalienable,  do  we  deprive  him  of  them  ?  There  is  some 
mystery  in  all  this,  not  to  be  explained  by  a  resort  to  the 
ordinary  mode  of  argumentation ;  and  those  who  insist,  as 
Miss  Martineau  does,  upon  the  unlimited  and  the  unqualified 
meaning  of  these  natural  laws — for  natural  rights  are  natural 
laws — will  certainly  be  at  a  loss  to  reconcile  a  difficulty  like 
this.  In  fact,  these  are  only  conditional  possessions  or  en- 
dowments. We  must  look  farther.  There  must  be  a  quali- 
fied acceptation  of  these  principles  and  phrases,  or  they  are 
nothing.  The  truth  is,  that  our  natural  rights  depend  en- 
tirely upon  the  degree  of  obedience  which  we  pay  to  the  lfiws 
of  our  creation.  All  our  rights,  whether  from  nature  or  from 
society — and  these  are  the  only  two  sources  of  right  known 
to  us — result  from  the  performance  of  our  duties  Unless 
we  perform  our  duties,  we  have  no  rights ;  or  they  are  aliena- 
ble, in  consequence  of  our  lachesse.  The  man  has  no  rights 


260  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

by  nature,  unless  by  a  compliance  with  the  laws  of  nature; 
as  he  would  have  no  rights  from  society,  unless  by  a  com- 
pliance with  its  laws.  Refusing  to  obey,  he  is  outlawed,  and 
society  thus  only  recognizes,  instinctively,  the  remorseless  de- 
cree of  nature.  Tliese  laws,  in  a  state  of  nature,  require 
from  the  man  the  application  of  fiis  mental  and  physical 
energies,  to  the  improvement  of  the  passive  world  around  him. 
It  was  given  to  him  for  this  single  purpose.  The  Indian,  who 
finds  himself  upon  a  hillock,  has  no  more  right  to  it,  by  na- 
ture, than  the  hog  which  burrows  along  its  borders,  until  he 
proves  his  right  by  the  exhibition  of  faculties  superior  to 
those  which  the  hog  possesses.  He  is  no  more  a  man  than 
the  hog,  until  he  complies  with  the  natural  laws  of  his  being. 
This  he  does,  when  he  builds  himself  a  cabin  from  the  woods 
around  him  ;  when  he  bends  the  branches  into  a  bower  oxer- 
head,  and  covers  the  roof  with  leaves,  and  strews  the  floor 
with  rushes,  and  thus  protects  himself  against  the  elements  ; 
when  he  gathers  fuel,  and,  by  rubbing  two  dried  sticks  to- 
gether, builds  himself  a  tire,  and  warms  himself  against  the 
cold  ;  when  he  plants  his  maize  and  beans,  and  provides 
against  future  hunger.  These  prove  his  superiority  to  the  ' 
brute,  and  maintain  for  him  the  proper  rights  which  his 
superior  powers  have  fairly  established  to  be  in  him.  He 
literally  obeys  the  first  decree  of  God  to  the  expatriated  man, 
and,  by  tilling  the  earth,  obtains  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of 
his  brow.*  As  he  proceeds,  Labor,  which,  alone,  is  but  a 
blind  Polyphemus  at  the  best,  receives  a  divine  assistant  from 
heaven,  in  the  shape  of  Art.  She  gives  life  and  animation 
to  his  toils,  cheers  him  with  her  smiles  and  her  songs,  and, 

*  And  this  is  one  of  the  first  elements  of  rel'gion,  as  it  is  the  prime 
dement  of  human  prosperity.  Genesis  is  studied  in  vain,  unless  this 
be  the  conclusion  of  the  student. 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  261 

when  his  work  is  ended,  with  a  plastic  hand,  smoothes  down 
its  roughnesses,  an<l,  from  the  rude  block,  commands  the 
upspringing  presence  of  Beauty.  In  the  progress  of  time, 
Nature  supplies  him,  from  his  own  resources,  with  another 
ally,  of  whom  he  had  no  previous  knowledge,  in  the  shape  of 
Science.  This  ally  is  many-winged  and  many-handed,  and 
makes  all  the  elements  subservient  to  his  purposes.  He  shows 
labor  where  to  place  his  shoulder,  and  the  mountain  is  heaved 
from  its  base.  He  tells  where  he  shall  strike,  and  the  crag  is 
cleft  by  his  stroke.  He  hews  clown  the  high  trees  of  the 
forest  at  his  bidding,  and  guides  his  dwelling-place  even  upon 
the  waters.  These  gifts  prepare  man  properly  for  life.  The 
crowning  and  last  gift,  which  is  spiritual  religion,  prepares  him 
for  death.  But  the  inevitable  law  must  be  first  obeyed,  or  he 
gains  none  of  these  blessings.  He  must  first  labor.  This  is 
the  destiny  from  which  he  is  forever  seeking  to  escape.*  It 
is  only  by  a  compliance  with  this,  the  first  law  of  his  creation, 
that  he  can  hope  tube  secure  in  life,  successful  in  his  pursuits, 
benefitted  by  society,  and  made  happy  by  religion.  It  is  the 
key-stone  of  religion  itself;  and  the  missionary  who  seeks  to 
teach  the  mysteries  of  Christianity  to  the  wandering  savage, 
can  never  hope  to  be  successful,  so  long  as  he  neglects  to  in- 
form him  of  the  first  duty  consequent  upon  his  creation. 

*  The  desire  to  escape  this  destiny  is  one  of  the  true  causes  of  the 
present  distress  of  our  country.  We  are  all  toiling  to  avoid  (oil  ;  and 
we  COOT,  lie,  swindle,  speculate — do  anything  but  delve  and  dig.  We 
import  our  labor —  the  most  useful  and  necessary  arm  of  our  population — 
from  a  foreign  country  ;  and  a  long  train  of  evils  must  ensue  in  conse- 
quence, which  the  narrow  mind  will  always  be  unwilling  to  trace  back 
to  this  seemingly  unimportant  origin.  It  is  a  moral  disgrace  to  a  nation 
such  as  ours,  not  less  than  a  political  and  social  evil,  when  we  are  com- 
pelled to  import  from  foreign  lands  our  grain,  our  bread  stuffs,  and  the 
forage  for  our  cattle.  Land  was  given  us  for  cultivation  ;  not  for  spe- 
culation.— Note  written  in  1837. 


262  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

The  result  of  labor,  to  the  man,  is  property.  The  posses- 
sion of  property  is  the  tirst  cause  which  brings  about  any 
enlarged  formation  of  society  :  numbers  become  necessary  to 
.defend  wealth  from  the  barbarians,  who  do  not  labor,  and  who 
have  none.  As  society  improves  and  increases — and  it  must 
inevitably  do  so,  while  it  continues  to  comply  with  its  natural 
and  obvious  laws — it  extends  its  dominion,  and  controls  the 
surrounding  tribes,  for  its  own  safety.  These  succumb,  are 
enslaved,  and,  as  they  improve  in  intellectual  respects,  are 
lifted,  by  regular  degrees,  into  the  bosom  of  that  society 
which  has  first  enslaved  them.*  The  superior  peoplp,  which 
conquers,  also  educates  the  inferior;  and  their  reward,  for 
this  good  service,  is  derived  from  the  labor  of  the  latter, 
which  being,  in  all  moral  respects,  the  inferior  people,  can 
yield  no  other  recompense.  Unless  the  civilized  and  superior 
nation  does  this,  it  will  inevitably  fall  a  victim  to  the  barba- 
rous tribes  which  gather  around  it — forever  poor,  desperate 
and  daring — having  no  possessions  to  lose,  and,  from  their 
bestial  improvidence,  compelled,  in  all  inclement  seasons,  to 
resort  to  war  with  their  neighbors,  to  avoid  starvation.  It  is 
no  less  the  duty  than  the  necessity,  therefore,  of  civilization, 
to  overcome  these  tiibes — to  force  the  tasks  of  life  upon 
them — to  compel  their  labor — to  teach  them  the  arts  of  eco- 
nomy and  providence,  and,  with  a  guiding  hand  and  unyield- 
ing sway,  conduct  them  to  the  moral  Pisgah,  from  whence 
they  may  behold  the  lovely  and  inviting  Canaan  of  a  higher 
and  holier  condition,  spread  out  before  them,  and  praying 
them  to  come.  When  civilization  ceases  to  extend  her  con- 

*  This  is  a  nnt'iral,  and  the  efoiv  an  inevitable  result.  Without  refi-r- 
ring  to  the  moral  law  to  this  effect,  the  Southern  slavehold-i  finds  it 
his  interest  to  lilt  the  nioie  intelligent  slave  in:o  stations  of  higher  re- 
bponsibil.ty,  and  more  honorable  trust,  than  are  commonly  yielded  to 
his  fellows. 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  263 

quests,  she  falls,  like  Rome,  the  victim  to  the  savage.  The 
Avar  is  as  endless  between  her  and  her  foe,  as  between  any 
two  diametrically  opposite,  principles  in  the  same  moral  cir- 
cle ;  and  as  hei  sway  is  the  more  gentle,  and  as  she  conquers 
only  to  improve,  while  the  savage  conquers  only  to  destroy, 
it  follows,  inevitably,  that  hers  is  the  only  legitimate  conquest, 
and  every  other  is  but  tyranny. 

Every  primitive  nation,  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge 
in  the  world's  history,  has  been  subjected  to  long  periods  of 
bondage.  They 'have  been  all  elevated  and  improved  by  its 
ta^ks  and  labors,  and  a  positive  sanction  fur  the  use  of  slavery, 
and  a  proof  of  its  necessity,  are  fairly  to  be  inferred  from  this 
inevitable  consequence;  but,  as  if  this  were  not  enough  for 
the  purposes  of  authority,  God  himself,  we  are  given  to  under- 
stand, actually,  in  two  remarkable  instances,  placed  a  favorite 
people  in  foreign  slavery,  making  them  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water,  in  the  land  of  the  stranger;  as,  from  their 
refusal  to  comply  with  the  laws  of  their  creation,  they  had 
shown  themselves  unfitted  even  for  the  very  comparative  de- 
gree of  social  liberty  allotted  to  men  at  those  periods — requi- 
ring them  thus,  through  that  ordeal,  which  is  improperly 
called  slavery,  but  which  is  simply  a  process  of  preparation 
for  an  improving  and  improved  condition,  to  work  out  thtir 
own  moral  deliverance.  For,  truly  is  it,  that  we  shall  not 
only  gain  our  bread  by  the  sweat  of  our  brow,  but  thus  sub- 
due those  barbarous  appetites,  and  degrading  brutal  propen- 
sities, without  the  subjection  of  which,  our  minds  could  never 
have,  that  due  play  and  exercise,  which  can  alone  fit  them  for 
social  depenclance,  and  the  friendly  restraints  of  a  guardian 
government.  TJie  nature  of  man  is  one  of  continual  conflicts, 
and  those  chiefly  with  himself;  and  the  proverb  which  incul- 
cates the  victory  over  himself  as  the  most  glorious  of  all  vic- 
tories, is  one  strictly  and  philosophically  growing  out  of  a 


264  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

just  knowledge  of  his  own  attributes,  and  the  difficulties  which 
oppose  their  exercise. 

Our  general  views,  in  modern  times,  on  the  subject  of  slaves 
and  slavery,  are  distressingly  narrow.  Our  forefather!  were 
less  precipitate,  but  more  certain  in  their  philosophy.  They 
did  not  scruple  to  go  forward,  but  they  were  first  sure  that 
they  were  right  in  doing  so.  We  do  not  resemble  them  in 
this.  We  are  too  ready  to  follow  multitudes  to  do  evil. 
Having  commenced  our  political  career  by  a  grand  innovation 
upon  the  existing  condition  of  things,  we  would  still  innovate  ; 
and,  like  any  other  good  principle  suffering  abuse,  the  zeal 
•which  released  us  from  a  foreign  yoke  would  also  release  us 
from  our  allegiance  to  higher  influences  than  kings.  We  are 
losing  our  veneration  fast.  We  are  overthrowing  all  sacred 
and  hallowing  associations  and  authorities.  Marriage  is  now 
a  bond  which  we  may  rend  at  pleasure.  The  Sabbath  is  a 
•wrong  and  a  superstition.  Such  is  the  progress  of  opinion  and 
doctrine  among  those  very  classes  which  show  themselves  hos- 
tile to  Southern  slavery.  The  cry  is  "  On  !"  and  we  do  not 
see  the  beginning  of  the  end.  Never  was  fanaticism  more 
mad  tha.i  on  the  subject  of  slavery  ;  which  was  a  very  good 
thing  enough  when  "England  and  the  North"  sold  staves, 
and  the  South  bought  them  ;  and  it  is  a  good  thing  now,  if 
we  would  only  reason  rightly,  and  find  out  what  slavery  is. 
We  make  no  distinction  between  those  restraints  which  im- 
pose labor  upon  the  body — improving  its  health,  bringing  out 
its  symmetry  and  strength,  and  fulfilling  a  destiny,  which  the 
analogies  of  all  history,  not  less  than  the  failh  which  we  pro- 
fess, teach  us  is  the  decree  of  the  Universal  Parent — and 
that  bondage  of  the  mind,  and  that  denial  of  its  exercise, 
which  are  always  the  aim  of  tyrannies,  and  which,  as  in  the 
case  of  some  of  the  unlaboriny  people  of  Europe,  must  result 
in  the  utter  enervation,  sluggishness,  and  shame  of  body  and 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  265 

mind  alike.  Pity  it  is,  that  the  lousy  and  lounging  lazzaroni 
of  Italy,  cannot  be  made  to  labor  in  the  fields,  under  the 
whip  of  a  severe  task-master !  They  would  then  be  a  much 
freer — certainly  a  much  nobler  animal — than  we  can  possibly 
esteem  them  now  ; — and  far  better  had  it  been  for  our  native 
North  American  savage,  could  he  have  been  reduced  to  ser- 
vitude, and,  by  a  labor  imposed  upon  him,  within  his  strength, 
and  moderately  accommodated  to  his  habits,  have  been  pre- 
served from  that  painful  and  eating  decay,  which  has  left  but 
a  raw  and  naked  skeleton  of  what  was  once  a  numerous  and 
various  people — a  people,  that  needed  nothing  but  an  Egyp- 
tian bondage  of  four  hundred  years  to  have  been  saved  for 
the  future,  and  lifted  into  a  greatness  to  which  Grecian  and 
Roman  celebrity  might  have  been  a  faint  and  failing  music.* 
This  clamor  about  liberty  and  slavery,  is,  aftef  all,  unless 
we  get  some  certain  definitions  to  begin  with,  the  most  arrant 
nonsense.  "  License  they  mean  when  they  cry  liberty  !" — and 
we  may  add,  "  license  they  mean  when  they  cry  slavery  !" 
The  extremes  are  near  kindred,  and  in  all  these  clamors  they 
are  sure  to  meet.  The  Russian  boor  is  called  a  slave,  and 

*  I  will  be  referred  to  the  experiment  of  this  nature,  made  by  the 
Spaniards  in  the  Island  of  Cuba,  in  -which  the  poor  savages  were 
utterly  destroyed.  But  this  is  no  parallel  case  to  the  proposition  in 
the  text.  The  reason  -why  the  Spaniards  failed,  and  the  Indians 
perished  under  the  repartimiento  Astern,  arose  from  the  fact,  that  the 
masters  hitd  only  a  temporary  and  not  a  permanent  interest  in  their 
services.  The  Spanish  governors  were  compelled  to  arrive  at  sudden 
•wealth,  or  not  at  all ;  and  they  worked  the  savages  to  death  in  order 
to  obtain  it.  Had  the  Indians  been  allotted  to  them,  not  according 
to  geographical,  but  numerical  divisions,  such  result  would  not  have 
followed.  They  should  have  had  a  limited  number  of  slaves,  and  in 
these  they  should  have  had  a  life  interest.  Their  policy,  then,  must 
have  been  to  economize  that  labor,  of  which,  under  the  existing  cir- 
cumstances, they  were  inhumanly  profligate.  The  iate  of  the  Indians, 
under  such  rule,  might  have  been  predicted. 
23 


266  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

the  German  subject  of  Austria  is  called  a  slave,  and  the 
Italian  is  called  a  slave,  and  the  negro  in  the  Southern  States 
is  called  a  slave, — and  yet,  how  unlike  to  one  another  is  the 
condition  of  all  these  slaves  !  The  right  of  ruling  themselves, 
at  pleasure,  is  that  which  is  assumed  to  be  the  test  of  free- 
dom. The  native  African  has  that  right,  and  what  is  the 
rule  of  Africa?  A  sufficient  commentary  upon  it  will  be 
found  in  the  naked,  unmarked  outlines,  hanging  upon  the 
walls  of  our  houses,  and  dignified  with  the  title  of  maps  of 
Africa.  Murder  awaits  the  missionary  and  the  traveller  who 
penetrate  the  country  ;  and  civilization  seems  to  be  as  far 
remote  as  ever  from  their  attainment.  And  how  should  it  be 
otherwise  ?  And  how  should  they  improve,  having  never 
taken  the  first  step  in  such  a  progress  ?  They  cannot  im- 
prove until  they  learn  to  labor, — they  will  not  learn  to  labor 
until  they  become  stationary  ;  and  the  wandering  savage  has 
seldom  yet  become  stationary,  unless  by  the  coercion  of  a 
superior  people.*  But  the  right  to  govern  themselves  re- 
quires, first,  a  capacity  for  such  government.  The  right  can 
only  result  from  a  compliance  with  the  laws  of  their  creation  ; 
and  the  capacity  requires  long  ages  of  preparation,  of  great 
trial,  hardship,  severe  labor  and  perilous  enterprise.  The 
responsibilities  and  the  duties  of  self-government,  demand  a 
wonderful  and  wide-spread  knowledge  and  practice  of  morals, 

*  For  the  sake  of  the  African  world,  it  is  to  be  regretted  that, 
instead  of  abolishing  the  slave  trade,  the  nations  had  not  contented 
themselves  with  regulating  it.  Vessels  should  have  been  licensed  for 
the  trade,  of  particular  burden  and  construction,  and  carrying  limited 
numbers  ;  by  which  means  the  disgusting  and  dreadful  horrors  which 
resulted  from  the  compression  of  the  unhappy  captives,  in  great  num- 
bers, into  foetid  and  narrow  dungeons,  would  have  been  avoided,  with 
all  of  the  evils  consequent  upon  their  change  of  condition  ;  leaving 
them  only  to  the  thousand  benefits,  which  make  the  American  slave 
so  superior  an  animal  to  the  African  freemen. 


THE   MORALS    OF   SLAVERY.  267 

before  such  a  capacity  can  arise  ;  and  it  would  be  an  awkward 
and  difficult  inquiry  at  this  moment  to  discover  any  one  of 
the  leading  nations  of  the  globe  where  such  a  capacity  exists. 
I  will  not  even  believe  it  to  exist  in  the  United  States,  until 
I  see  the  people  willing  to  tax  themselves  directly  for  their  own 
protection.  I  will  not  believe  it,  so  long  as  they  need  to  be 
deceived  by  indirect  and  circuitous  taxation,  into  the  expendi- 
tures which  are  necessary  for  their  own  good.  They  are  not 
yet  willing  to  look  in  the  face  the  cost  of  their  own  liberties. 
The  practice  of  the  English  government  denies  the  existence 
of  any  such  capacity  among  its  people  ;*  and  France ! — what 
*  Great  Britain  has  freed  her  slaves,  yet  denies  equality  to  a  large 
portion  of  ber  own  people — yea,  denies  them  equal  liberties  of  con- 
science. But  how  has  she  freed  the  blacks  ?  If  they  had  an  unquali- 
fied right  of  freedom,  by  what  right  has  she  limited  their  freedom, 
in  making  them  apprentices  for  a  term  of  years  ?  Their  rights,  if 
absolute,  demanded,  on  her  part,  an  absolute  release  of  them.  While 
I  write,  I  am  reminded  of  a  paragraph  in  the  Table  Talk  of  Cole- 
ridge. It  is  kindred  to  our  notions,  and  we  give  it  accordingly.  He 
says  •  "  You  are  always  talking  of  the  rights  of  the  negroes.  As  a 
rhetorical  mode  of  stimulating  the  people  of  England  here,  1  do  not 
object;  but  I  utterly  condemn  your  frantic  practice  of  declaiming 
about  their  rights  to  the  blacks  themselves.  They  ought  to  be  forci- 
bly reminded  of  the  state  in  which  their  brethren  in  Africa  still  are, 
and  taught  to  be  thankful  for  the  providence  which  has  placed  them 
•within  the  means  of  grace.  I  know  no  right  except  such  as  flows  from 
righteousness  ;  and  as  every  Christian  believes  his  righteousness  to  be 
imputed,  so  must  his  right  be  an  imputed  right  too.  It  must  flow  out 
of  a  duty,  and  it  is  under  that  name  that  the  process  of  humanization 
ought  to  begin  and  to  be  conducted  throughout."  In  another  para- 
graph, devoted  more  distinctly  to  the  proceedings  of  the  British  par- 
liament, Mr.  Coleridge  speaks  thus:  "Have  you  been  able  to  dis- 
cover any  principle  in  this  emancipation  bill  for  the  slaves,  except  a 
principle  of  fear  of  the  abolition  party  struggling  with  a  fear  of  caus- 
ing some  monstrous  calamity  to  the  empire  at  large  ?  Well !  I  will 
not  prophesy  ;  and  God  grant  that  this  tremendous  and  unprecedented 
act  of  positive  enactment  may  not  do  the  harm  to  the  cause  of  human- 
ity and  freedom  which  I  cannot  but  fear  !" 


268  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

have  all  her  bloody  days,  through  successive  ages,  effected 
for  her  liberties,  but  cries  for  more  blood,  an  increasing  dis- 
content, and  the  fever  and  phrensy  which  continually  defy 
and  defeat  her  own  laws,  in  the  appetite  which  calls  tor 
fresher  uproar?  Perhaps,  the  very  homogeneousness  of  a 
people  is  adverse  to  the  most  wholesome  forms  of  liberty.  It 
may  make  of  a  selfish  people  (which  has  succeeded  by  the 
aid  of  other  nations  in  the  attainment  of  a  certain  degree  of 
moral  enlargement)  a  successful  people — in  the  merely  world- 
ly sense  of  the  word — but  it  can  never  make  them,  morally, 
a  great  one.*  For  that  most  perfect  form  of  liberty,  which 
prompts  us  to  love  justice  for  its  own  sake,  it  requires  strange 
admixtures  of  differing  races — the  combination  and  compari- 
son of  the  knowledge  which  each  has  separately  arrived  at — 
the  long  trials  and  conflicts  which  precede  their  coming  to- 
gether ;  and  their  perfect  union  in  the  end,  after  that  subjec- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  inferior  class,  which  compels  them  to 
a  knowledge  of  what  is  possessed  by  the  superior.  This  was 
the  history  of  the  Saxon  boors  under  the  Norman  conquest — 
a  combination,  which  has  resulted  in  the  production  of  one  of 
the  most  perfect  specimens  of  physical  organization  and  moral 
susceptibilities,  which  the  world  has  ever  known.  And  where 
this  'amalgamation  cannot  be  effected — as  in  the  case  of  the 
Israelites — who  are  too  homogeneous  for  commixture  or  even 
communion  with  other  people, — the  slave,  in  the  progress  of 

*  The  moment  that  a  people  boasts  of  its  homogeneousness,  we 
may  begin  to  doubt  its  farther  improvement,  particularly  if  the  com- 
munity be  a  small  one.  The  homogeneousness  of  the  Jews  is,  proba- 
bly, the  true  reason  of  their  national  inferiority.  They  are  a  people, 
•without  a  nation.  All  insulated  communities  degenerate;  until,  in 
time,  they  cease  even  to  have  issue.  The  intermarriages  of  islanders, 
villagers,  and  other  homogeneous  people,  should  be  forbidden  by 
law ;  and  so  should  the  intermarriages  among  cousins.  Perhaps,  it 
would  be  well,  if  our  men  in  America  always  chose  their  wives  from 
other  States  and  sections  than  their  own. 


THE   MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  269 

events,  acquires  the  knowledge  of  the  master.  When  Moses 
could  emulate  the  Egyptian  priesthood,  he  was  able  to  em- 
body and  to  represent  his  people,  and  to  lead  them  forth  from 
bondage";  for  then  they  had  acquired  all  the  knowledge 
which  was  possessed  by  the  Egyptian  ;  and  as  they  could 
derive  nothing  further  from  the  instruction  of  their  masters, 
the  period  had  naturally  arrived  for  their  emancipation.  Up- 
on this  susceptibility  of  acquisition,  on  the  pirt  of  the  slave, 
depends  the  whole  secret  of  his  release  from  bondage.  It  is 
his  mental  and  moral  inferiority  which  has  enslaved,  or  sub- 
jected him  to  a  superior.  It  is  his  rise,  morally  and  intellec- 
tually, into  the  same  form  with  his  master,  which  alone  can 
emancipate  him. — (See  Appendix.)  It  is  possible  that  a  time 
will  come,  when,  taught  by  our  schools,  and  made  strong  by 
our  training,  the  negroes  of  the  Southern  States  may  arrive 
at  freedom  ;  then,  at  least,  his  condition  may  be  such  as 
•would  entitle  him  to  go  forth  out  of  bondage.  It  may  be, 
when  that  time  comes,  that,  like  Pharoah,  we  too  shall  prove 
unwilling  to  give  up  our  bondmen.  But  that  that  time  is 
very  far  remote,  is  sufficiently  evident  from  the  condition  of 
the  free  negroes  in  the  Northern  States,  and  elsewhere — the 
British  West  Indies,  for  example.  There,  in  both  regions, 
•without  restraints  of  any  kind,  they  rather  decline  to  a  worse 
brutality,  with  every  increase  of  privilege.  In  the  former 
region,  after  a  fifty  years'  enjoyment  of  their  own  rule,  they 
have  yet  founded  no  city  to  themselves,  raised  no  community 
of  their  own  ;  but  are  willing  to  remain  the  boot-cleaners  and 
the  bottle-washers  of  the  whites,  in  a  state  of  degrading  infe- 
riority, which  they  are  too  obtuse  to  feel ;  and  are  only  made 
conscious  of  their  degradation,  by  the  occasional  kicks  and 
cuffs  which  they  are  made  to  endure,  at  the  humor  of  the 
whites,  and  without  any  prospect  of  redress.  They  have  not 
that  moral  courage — the  true  source  of  independence — which 
23* 


2  TO  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

would  prompt  them,  like  the  poor  white  pioneer,  to  sally 
forth  into  the  wilderness,  hew  out  their  homes,  and  earn  their 
rights  by  a  compliance  with  their  duties.  They  feel  their 
inferiority  to  the  whites,  even  when  nominally  freemen ;  and 
sink  into  the  condition  of  serviles,  in  fact,  if  not  in  name,  in 
compliance  with  their  natural  dependence,  and  unquestion- 
able moral  decencies.  What  they  show  themselves  now, 
with  every  example  around  them  stimulating  them  to  free- 
dom and  ambition,  taken  in  connection  with  what  they  have 
been  shown  to  be  from  the  earliest  known  periods  of  history, 
ought  to  be  conclusive,  with  every  person  of  common  sense, 
not  only  that  they  have  no  capacity  for  an  individual  inde- 
pendent existence,  but  that  they  were  always  designed  for  a 
subordinate  one.  And  why  should  we  assume  for  the  Deity, 
that  he  has  set  out  with  a  design,  in  the  creation  and  govern- 
ment of  men,  differing  from  those  laws  which  he  has  pre- 
scribed in  the  case  of  all  his  other  creatures.  Why  should 
there  not  be  as  many  races  of  men,  differing  in  degree,  in 
strength,  capacity,  art,  endowment,  as  we  find  them  differing 
in  shape,  stature,  color,  organization  ?  Why,  indeed,  should 
there  not  be  differing  organizations  among  men,  which  shall 
distinctly  shadow  forth  the  several  duties,  and  the  assigned 
stations,  which  they  are  to  fulfil  and  occupy  in  life.  This 
ould  seem  to  be  a  necessity,  analogous  to  what  is  apparent 
every  where  in  all  the  other  works  of  God's  creation.  Nay,  is 
it  not  absolutely  consistent  with  ail  that  we  learn  from  history 
of  the  uses  of  men  and  nations  ?  As  we  note  their  progress, 
we  detect  their  mission  ;  and,  this  done,  they  themselves  dis- 
appear. The  African  seems  to  have  his  mission.  He  does 
not  disappear,  but  he  still  remains  a  slave  or  a  savage ! 
I  do  not  believe  that  he  ever  will  be  other  than  a  slave,  or 
that  he  was  made  to  be  otherwise  ;  but  that  he  is  designed  as 
au  implement  in  the  hands  of  civilization  always.  You  may 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  271 

eradicate  him  from  place,  but  not  from  life.  If  he  ceases  to 
exist  in  Virginia  or  Carolina,  Georgia  or  Louisiana,  it  is  only 
because  he  is  doing  the  allotted  tasks  of  his  master  in  regions 
farther  South.  I  look  upon  Negro  Slavery  as  the  destined 
agent  for  the  civilization  of  all  the  states  of  Mexico,  and  all 
the  American  states  beyond. 

The  circumstance  which,  more  than  any  thing  beside  — 
apart  from  his  original  genius — prepared  the  Anglo-American 
for  the  comparative  condition  of  freedom  which  he  enjoys, 
was  the  desperate  adventure,  the  trying  necessity,  and  the 
thousand  toils  through  which  he  had  to  go,  in  contending 
with  the  sterility  of  an  unfriendly  soil,  and  the  continual  and 
thwarting  hostility  of  surrounding  and  savage  men.  The 
very  sterility  of  New-England,  by  imposing  upon  all  classes 
the  necessity  of  labor,  gave  strength  and  energy  to  her  sons, 
and  stability  to  her  institutions.  Her  severe  austerity  arose 
even  more  from  her  own  toils  and  trials,  than  from  her  puri- 
tan ancestry ;  and,  bating  the  bigotry  and  miserable  exclu- 
siveness  which,  among  the  vast  majority  of  her  people,  can 
find  no  greatness  and  little  worth  beyond  her  own  borders, 
she  confessedly  stands  among  the  most  successful,  in  worldly 
affairs,  of  any  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  fertility 
of  the  soil  in  the  South,  by  readily  yielding  to  the  hands  of 
Labor,  is,  without  any  paradox,  the  true  source  of  our  enerva- 
tion, and  of  the  doubtful  prosperity  of  our  country — as  a 
country  merely.  Individuals  are  successful  and  prosperous, 
but  not  the  face  of  the  country ;  and  however  much  this  may 
be  the  subject  of  regret  on  the  one  hand,  like  the  trumpet  of 
Miss  Martineau,  it  is  not  without  its  advantages.  It  results, 
we  may  state,  in  individuality  of  character  among  its  people  ; 
who  never,  in  consequence,  devolve  upon  societies,  combina- 
tions, or  their  neighbors,  their  several  duties  of  charity,  hos- 
pitality and  friendship  ;  and  who  sufficiently  esteem  their 


2*72  THE   MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

own  morals,  their  sense  of  honor  and  humanity,  to  think  they 
can  do  justice  to  the  claims  of  their  dependants,  without  the 
interference  or  tuition  of  any  gratuitous  philanthropy. 

The  chapter  which  Miss  Martineau  devotes  to  the  "  Morals 
of  Slavery,"  should  rather  be  styled  the  morals  of  the  com- 
munity. The  excesses  to  which  she  refers,  and  in  some 
respects  particularizes,  are  excesses  not  confined  to  the  slave 
States,  and  which  do  not,  in  any  State,  result  from  slavery. 
We  contend  for  the  morality  of  slavery  among  us,  as  we 
assert  that  the  institution  has  wrought,  and  still  conti- 
nues to  work,  the  improvement  of  the  negro  himself;  and 
we  confidently  challenge  a  comparison  between  the  slave 
of  Carolina,  and  the  natives  of  the  region  from  which  his 
ancestors  have  been  brought.  No  other  comparison,  with 
any  other  people,  can  properly  be  made.  We  challenge 
comparison  between  the  negro  slave  in  the  streets  of  Charles- 
ton, and  the  negro  freeman — so  called — in  the  streets  of 
New-York.  Compare  either  of  these  with  the  native  Indian, 
and,  so  far  as  the  civilized  arts,  and  the  ideas  of  civilization 
are  involved  in  the  comparison,  you  will  find  that  the  negro 
who  has  been  taught  by  the  white  man,  is  always  deferred 
to,  in  matters  of  counsel,  by  his  own  Indian  master.  The 
negro  slave  of  a  Muscoghee  warrior,  to  my  knowledge,  in 
frequent  instances,  is  commonly  his  best  counsellor;  and  the 
primitive  savage  follows  the  direction  of  him,  who,  having 
been  forced  to  obey  the  laws  of  his  creation,  has  become 
•wiser,  in  consequence,  than  the  creature  who  wilfully  refuses.* 

*"The  Indian,"  says  Miss  Martineau, '' looks  with  silent  wonder 
upon  the  settler,  who  becomes  visibly  a  capitalist  in  nine  months, 
on  the  same  spot  where  the  red  man  has  remained  equally  poor  all 
his  life."  Elsewhere  and  everywhere  she  describes  the  negro  slaves 
of  the  Indians  as  looking  better  than  their  masters.  She  attributes 
this  to  the  milder  form  of  their  slavery  to  that  of  the  whites  ;  though 


THE    MORALS    OP    SLAVERY.  273 

This  subjection  to  the  superior  mind  is  the  process  through 
which  every  inferior  nation  has  gone,  and  the  price  which  the 
inferior  people  must  always  pay,  for  that  knowledge  of,  and 
compliance  with,  their  duties,  which  alone  can  bring  them  to 
the  possession  of  their  rights,  and  to  the  due  attainment  of 
their  liberties — these  liberties  always  growing  in  value  and 
number  with  the  improving  tastes  and  capacities  for  their 
appreciation.  Show  me  any  people,  which,  complying  with 
this  inevitable  condition,  has  not  improved  !  Show  me  one, 
refusing  to  comply,  which  has  not  perished  !  Look  at  the 
history  of  man  throughout  the  world,  with  the  eye  of  a  cairn, 
unselfish,  deliberate  judgment,  and  say  if  this  be  not  so. 
Regard  the  slave  of  Carolina,  with  a  proper  reference  to  the 
condition  of  the  cannibal  African  from  whom  he  has  been 
rescued,  and  say  if  his  bondage  has  not  increased  his  value  to 
himself,  not  less  than  to  bis  master.  We  contend  that  it 
found  him  a  cannibal,  destined  in  his  own  country  to  eat  his 
fellow,  or  to  be  eaten  by  him  ; — that  it  brought  him  to  a 
land  in  which  he  suffers  no  risk  of  life  or  limb,  other  than 
that  to  which  his  owner  is  equally  subjected ; — that  it  in- 

the  obvious  inference  should  have  been  the  greater  advantages  of 
•white  slavery  in  so  educating  the  inferior  African,  as  to  lift  him  into 
a  mental  condition  vastly  superior  to  that  of  the  red  man,  who,  in  a 
state  of  nature,  is  decidedly  more  intellectual  than  the  black  in  a  like 
state.  She  says,  speaking  of  the  religious  education  of  the  Indian — 
"  I  fear  that  the  common  process  has  here  been  gone  through,  of 
taking  from  the  savage  the  venerable  and  true  which  he  possessed, 
and  to  force  upon  him  something  else  which  is  neither  venerable  nor 
true."  This  is  one  of  those  vague  phrases  and  seem  ng  philosophies 
•with  which  the  book  abounds.  The  fact  is,  that  the  only  '•  venera- 
ble and  true"  which  is  necessary,  for  the  improvement  of  the  Indian, 
is  the  compulsion  of  labor,  whose  laws  are  surely  sufficiently  venera- 
ble, an:l  as  surely  ought  to  be  true,  considering  where  we  find  them — 
the  venerable  and  true  which  he  never  yet  has  been  taught,  and  is 
not  now  very  likely  to  acquire. 


274  THE    MORALS    OF    8LAVERY. 

creases  his  fecundity  infinitely  beyond  that  of  the  people  from 
whom  he  has  been  taken — that  it  increases  his  health  and 
strength,  improves  his  physical  symmetry  and  animal  organi- 
zation— that  it  elevates  his  mind  and  morals — that  it  extends 
his  term  of  life — that  it  gives  him  better  and  more  certain 
food,  better  clothing,  and  more  kind  and  valuable  attendance 
when  he  is  sick.  These  clearly  establish  the  morality  of  the 
slave  institutions  in  the  South  ;  and,  though  they  may  not 
prove  them  to  be  as  perfect  as  they  may  be  made,  as  clearly 
show  their  propiiety  and  the  necessity  of  preserving  them. 
Indeed,  the  slaveholders  of  the  South,  having  the  moral  and 
physical  guardianship  of  an  ignorant  and  irresponsible  people 
under  their  control,  are  the  great  moral  conservators,  in  one 
powerful  interest,  of  the  entire  world.  Assuming  slavery  to 
be  a  denial  of  justice  to  the  negro,  there  is  no  sort  of  propri- 
ety in  the  application  of  the  name  of  slave  to  the  servile  of 
the  South.  He  is  under  no  despotic  power.  There  are  laws 
which  protect  him,  in  his  place,  as  inflexible  as  those  which 
his  proprietor  is  required  to  obey,  in  his  place.  Providence 
has  placed  him  in  our  hands,  for  his  good,  and  has  paid  us 
from  his  labor  for  our  guardianship*  Tne  question  with 
us  is,  simply,  as  to  the  manner  in  which  we  have  fulfilled  our 
trust.  How  have  we  employed  the  talents  which  were  given 
us — how  have  we  discharged  the  duties  of  our  guardianship  ? 
What  is  the  condition  of  the  dependant  ?  Have  we  been 
careful  to  graduate  his  labors  to  his  capacities  ?  Have  we 

*  The  slaveholder  has  no  right  to  free  his  slave — unless  he  is  per- 
fectly assured  of  a  mental  and  moral  capacity  in  the  slave,  sufficiently 
strong  and  fixed,  to  enable  him  not  only  to  maintain  his  elevation, 
but  to  improve  it.  Having  done  so,  let  him  appear  before  God,  if 
he  dare,  and  account  for  the  trust  committed  to  his  hands.  The 
moral  and  mental  worth  of  the  slave,  can,  alone,  give  us  the  right 
to  discharge  him  from  his  dependance. 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  275 

bestowed  upon  him  a  fair  proportion  of  the  fruits  of  his  in- 
dustry 1  Have  we  sought  to  improve  his  mind  in  correspon- 
dence with  his  condition  ?  Have  we  raised  his  condition  to 
the  level  of  his  improved  mind  ?  Have  we  duly  taught  him 
his  moral  duties — his  duties  to  God  and  man  ?  And  have 
we,  in  obedience  to  a  scrutinizing  conscience,  been  careful  to 
punish  only  in  compliance  with  his  deserts,  and  never  in 
brutali'y  or  wantonness?  These  are  the  grand  questions  for 
the  tribunal  of  each  slaveholder's  conscience.  He  must  an- 
swer them  to  his  God.  These  are  the  only  questions,  and 
they  apply  equally  to  all  his  other  relations  in  society.  Let 
him  carefully  put  them  to  himself,  and  shape  his  conduct,  as 
a  just  man,  in  compliance  with  what  he  should  consider  a 
sacred  duty,  undertaken  to  God  and  man  alike. 


-  •• 


APPENDIX. 


In  farther  illustration  of  some  of  the  topics  embodied  in 
this,  and  other  passages  of  this  essay,  I  make  an  extract  from 
a  dialogue  contained  in  the  collection  entitled  "The  Wigwam 
and  the  Cabin  :" 

"  Savages  are  children  in  all  but  physical  respects.  To  do 
anything  with  them,  you  must  place  them  in  that  position  of 
responsibility,  and  teach  them  that  law,  without  the  due  re- 
cognition of  which,  any  attempt  to  educate  a  child  mu*t  be 
an  absurdity — you  must  teach  them  obedience.  They  must 
be  made  to  know,  at  the  outset,  that  they  know  nothing,  and 
they  must  implicitly  defer  to  the  superior.  This  lesson  they 
will  never  learn,  so  long  as  they  possess  the  power,  at  any 
moment,  to  withdraw  from  his  control." 

''  Yet,  even  were  this  to  be  allowed,  there  must  be  a  limit. 
There  must  come  a  time  when  you  will  he  required  to  eman- 
cipate them.  In  what  circumstances  will  you  rind  that  time  ? 
You  cannot  keep  them  under  this  coercion  always  ;  when  will 
you  set  them  free  ?" 

"  When  they  are  fit  for  freedom." 

"  How  is  that  to  be  determined  ?  Who  shall  decide  their 
fitness  ?" 

"Themselves;  as  in  the  case  of  the  children  of  Israel. 
The  children  of  Israel  went  out  from  bondage  as  soon  as  their 
own  intellectual  advancement  had  been  such  as  to  enable 
them  to  produce  from  their  own  ranks  a  leader  like  Moses : — 
one  whose  genius  was  equal  to  that  of  the  people  by  whom 
they  had  been  educated,  and  sufficient  for  their  own  proper 
government  thereafter." 

"  But  has  not  an  experiment  of  this  sort  already  been  tried 
in  our  country  ?" 

"  Nay,  I  think  not — I  know  of  none." 


THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY.  277 

"  Yes :  an  Indian  boy  was  taken,  in  infancy,  from  his  pa- 
rents, carried  to  one  of  the  Northern  States,  trained  in  all  the 
learning  and  habits  of  a  Northern  college  and  society,  asso- 
ciated only  with  whites,  beheld  no  mariners,  and  heard  no 
morals,  but  those  which  are  known  to  Christian  communities. 
His  progress  was  satisfactory — he  Irarned  rapidly — was  con- 
sidered something  of  a  prodigy,  and  graduated  with  eclat. 
He  was  then  left,  with  the  same  option  which  the  rest  enjoyed, 
to  the  choice  of  a  profession.  And  what  was  his  choice  ? 
Do  you  not  remember  the  beautiful  little  poem  of  Freneau 
on  this  subject?  He  chose  the  buckskin  leggins,  the  mocca- 
sins, bow  and  arrows,  and  the  wide,  wild  forests,  where  his 
people  dwelt." 

"  Freneau's  poem  tells  the  story  somewhat  differently.  The 
facts  upon  which  it  is  founded,  however,  are,  I  believe,  very 
much  as  you  tell  them.  But  what  an  experiment  it  was ! 
How  very  silly !  They  take  a  copper-colored  boy  from  his 
people,  and  carry  him,  while  yet  an  infant,  to  a  remote  region. 
Suppose,  in  order  that  the  experiment  may  be  fairly  tried, 
that  they  withhold  from  him  all  knowledge  of  his  origin.  He 
is  brought  up  precisely  as  the  other  lads  around  him.  But 
what  is  the  first  discovery  which  he  makes  ?  That  he  is  a 
copper-colored  boy  ;  that  he  is,  alone,  the  only  copper-colored 
boy  ;  that,  wherever  he  turns,  he  sees  po  likenesses  of  himself. 
This  begets  his  wonder,  then  his  curiosity,  and  finally  his  sus- 
picion. He  soon  understands — for  his  suspicion  sharpens 
every  faculty  of  observation — that  he  is  an  object  of  experi- 
ment. Nay,  the  most  cautious  policy  in  the  world  could 
never  entirely  keep  this  from  a  keen  thoughted  urchin.  His 
fellow  pupils  teach  him  this.  He  sees  that,  to  them,  he  is  an 
object  of  curiosity  and  study.  They  regard  him,  and  he  soon 
regards  himself,  as  a  creature  set  apart,  and  separated,  for 
some  peculiar  purposfs,  from  all  the  rest.  A  stern  and  sin- 
gular sense  of  individuality  and  isolation  is  thus  forced  upon 
him.  He  asks — Am  I,  indeed,  alone? — Who  am  I? — What 
ami?  These  inquiries  naturally  occasion  others.  Does  he 
read  ?  Books  give  him  the  history  of  his  race.  Nay,  his 
own  story  probably  meets  his  eye,  in  the  newspapers.  He 
learns  that  he  is  descended  from  a  nation  dwelling  among  the 
secret  sources  of  the  Susquehanaah.  He  pries  in  all  corners 
24 


2"78  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

for  more  information.     The  more  secret  his  search,  the  more 
keenly  does  he  pursue  it.     Jt  becomes   the  great  passion  of 
his  mind.     He  learns  that  his  people  are  tierce  warriors  and 
famous   hunters.     He   hears  of  their  strifes  with   the  white 
man — their  successful   strifes,  when  the   nation  could   send 
forth   its  thousand   bow-men,  and   the  whites   were  few  and 
feeble.     Perhaps  the  young  pale  faces   around   him  speak  of 
his  people,  even  now,  as  enemies ;  at  least,  as  objects  of  sus- 
picion, and  possibly  antipathy.     All  these  things  teud  to  ele- 
vate and  idealize,  in  his  mind,  the  history  of  his  people.     He 
cherishes  a  sympathy,  even  beyond  the  natural  desires  of  the 
heart,  for  the  perishing  race  from  which  he  feels  himself,  'like 
a  limb,  cast  bleeding  and   torn.'     The  curiosity  to  see  his  an- 
cestry— the  people  of  his  tribe   and   country — would   be  the 
most  natural  feeling  of  the  white   boy,  under  similar  circum- 
stances ;  shall  we  wonder  that  it  is  the  predominant  passion 
in  the  bosom   of  the  Indian,  whose   very  complexion   forces 
him  away  from   all  connection  with   the  rest !     My  idea  of 
the  experiment — if  such  a  proceeding  can  be  called  an  expe- 
riment— is  soon  spoken.     As  a  statement  of  facts,  I  see  no- 
thing to  provoke  wonder.     The  result  was  the   most  natural 
thing  in  the  world,  and  a   man    of  ordinary  powers  of  reflec- 
tion might  easily  have  predicted  it,  precisely  as  it  happened. 
The  only  wonder  is  that  there  should    be  found,  among  per- 
sons  of  ordinary  education    and   sagacity,  men   who   should 
have  undertaken  such   an  experiment,  and   fancied  that  they 
were  busy  in  a  moral  and  philosophical  problem.'' 
"Why.  how  would  you  have  the  experiment  tried  ?" 
"As  it  was  tried  upon  the  Hebrews,  upon  the  Saxons,  upon 
every  savage  people  who  ever  became  civili/ed.     It  cannot  be 
tried  upon  an  individual  ;  it  must  be  tried  upon  a  nation — at 
least  upon  a  community,  sustained   by  no  succor  from  with- 
out— having  no  forests  or  foreign  shores,  upon  which  to  turn 
their  eyes    for   refuge — having    no    mode    or  hope    of   es- 
cape— under  the  full  control  of  an  already  civilized  people — 
and  sufficiently  numerous  among  themselves   to  tind  sympa- 
thy against  those   necessary  rigors   which    at  first  will  seem 
oppressive,  but  whuh    will   be  the  only  hopeful    process   by 
which  to  enforce  the  work  of  improvement,     'ihey  must  tind 
this  sympathy  from   beholding  others,  like  then.selu-s  in  as- 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  2*79 

pect,  form,  feature  and  condition,  subject  to  the  same  unusual 
restraints.  In  this  contemplation,  they  will  be  content  to 
pursue  their  labors,  under  a  rule  which  they  cannot  dis- 
place. But  the  natural  law  must  be  satisfied.  There  must 
be  opportunities  yielded  for  the  indulgence  of  the  legitimate 
passions.  The  young,  of  both  sexes,  among  the  subjected 
people,  must  commune  and  form  ties,  in  obedience  to  the 
requisitions  of  nature  and  according  to  their  national  customs. 
What  if  the  Indian  student,  on  whom  the  'experiment'  was 
tried,  had  paid  his  addresses  to  a  white  maiden  ?  What  a 
revulsion  of -the  moral  and  social  sense  would  have  followed 
bis  proposition,  in  the  mind  of  the  Saxon  damsel ;  and,  were 
she  to  consent,  what  a  commotion  in  the  community  in  which 
she  lived !  And  this  revulsion  and  commotion  would  be 
perfectly  natural,  and,  accordingly,  perfectly  proper.  God 
lias  made  an  obvious  distinction  between  the  races  of  men, 
setting  them  apart,  and  requiring  them  to  be  kept  so,  by 
subjecting  them  to  the  resistance  and  rebuke  of  one  of  the 
most  jealous  sentinels  of  sense  which  we  possess — the  eye. 
The  prejudices  of  this  sense  require  that  the  natural  barriers 
should  l>e  maintained,  and  hence  it  becomes  necessary  that 
the  race  in  subjection  should  be  sufficiently  numerous  to  ena- 
ble it  to  carry  out  the  great  object  of  every  distinct  commu- 
nity, though,  perchance,  it  may  happen  to  be  an  inferior  one. 
In  process  of  time,  the  beneficial  and  blessing  effects  of  -labor 
would  be  felt  and  understood  by  the  most  ignorant  and  savage 
of  the  race.  Perhaps  not  in  one  generation,  or  in  two,  but 
after  the  fifth  arid  seventh,  as  it  is  written,  '  of  those  who  keep 
my  commandments.'  They  would  soon  discover  that,  though 
compelled  to  toil,  their  toils  neither  enfeebled  their  strength 
nor  impaired  their  happiness;  that,  on  the  contrary,  they  still 
resulted  in  their  increasing  strength,  health  and  comfort;  that 
their  food,  which  before  was  precarious,  depending  on  the 
caprices  of  the  seasons,  or  the  uncertainties  of  the  chase,  was 
now  equally  plentiful,  wholesome  and  certain.  They  would 
also  perceive  that,  instead  of  the  sterility  which  is  usually  the 
destiny  of  all  wandering  tribes,  and  one  of  the  processes  by 
which  they  perish,  the  fecundity  of  their  people  was  wonder- 
fully increased.  These  discoveries — if  time  be  allowed  to 
make  them — would  tacitly  reconcile  them  to  that  inferior 


280  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

position  of  their  race,  which  is  proper  and  inevitable,  so  long 
as  their  intellectual  inferiority  shall  continue.  And  what 
would  have  been  the  effect  upon  our  Indians — decidedly  the 
noblest  race  of  aborigines  that  the  woild  has  ever  known — if, 
instead  of  buying  their  scalps,  at  prices  varying  from  five  to 
fifty  shillings,  each,  we  had  conquered  and  subjected  them  ? 
Will  any  one  pretend  to  say  that  they  would  not  have  in- 
creased, with  the  restraints  and  enforced  toils  of  our  superior 
genius  ? — that  they  would  not,  by  this  time,  have,  formed  a 
highly  valuable  and  noble  integral  in  the  formation  of  our 
national  strength  and  character  ?  Perhaps  their  civilization 
would  have  been  comparatively  easy.  The  Hebrews  required 
four  hundred  years;  the  Britons  and  Saxons,  possibly,  half 
that  time,  after  the  Norman  Conquest.  Differing  in  color 
from  their  conquerors,  though,  I  suspect,  with  a  natural  genius 
superior  to  that  of  the  ancient  Britons,  at  the  time  of  the 
Roman  invasion  under  Julius  Caesar,  the  struggle  between 
the  two  races  must  have  continued  for  some  longer  time  ;  but 
the  union  would  have  been  finally  effected,  and  then,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Englishman,  we  should  have  possessed  a  race, 
in  their  progeny,  which,  in  moral  and  physical  structure,  might 
have  challenged  competition  with  the  world.'' 

"Ay,  but  the  difficulty  would  have  been  in  the  conquest." 
"  True,  that  would  have  been  the  difficulty.  The  American 
colonists  were  few  iu  number  and  feeble  in  resource.  The 
nations  from  which  they  emerged  put  forth  none  of  their 
strength,  in  sending  them  forth.  Never  were  colonies  so  in- 
adequately provided,  so  completely  left  to  themselves  ;  and 
hence  the  peculiar  injustice  and  insolence  of  the  subsequent 
exactions  of  the  British,  by  which  they  required  their  colonies 
to  support  their  schemes  of  aggrandizement  and  expenditure, 
by  submitting  to  extreme  taxation.  Do  you  suppose,  if  the 
early  colonists  had  been  powerful,  that  they  would  have  ever 
deigned  to  treat  for  lands  with  the  roying  hordes  of  savages 
whom  they  found  on  the  continent  ?  Never!  Their  purchases 
and  treaties  were  not  for  lands,  but  tolerance.  They  bought 
permission  to  remain  without  molestation.  The  amount  pro- 
fessedly paid  for  laud  was  simply  a  tribute,  paid  to  the  supe- 
rior strength  of  the  Indian,  precisely  as  we  paid  it  to  Algiers 
and  the  Mussulineus,  until  we  grew  strong  enough  to  whip 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  281 

them  into  respect.  If,  instead  of  a  few  ships,  and  a  few  hun- 
dred men,  timidly  making  their  approaches  along  the  shores 
of  Manhattan,  Penobscot  and  Ocracocke,  some  famous  leader, 
like  ^Eneas,  had  brought  his  entire  people — suppose  them  to 
be  the  persecuted  Irish — what  a  wondrous  difference  would 
have  taken  place.  The  Indians  would  have  been  subjected — 
would  have  sunk  into  their  proper  position  of  humility  and 
dependence— and,  by  this  time,  might  have  united  with  their 
conquerors,  producing,  perhaps,  along  the  great  ridge  of  the 
Alleghany,  the  very  noblest  specimens  of  humanity,  in  mental 
and  bodily  stature,  that  the  world  has  ever  witnessed.  The 
Indians  were  taught  to  be  insolent,  by  the  fears  arid  feebleness 
of  the  whites.  They  were  flattered  by  fine  words,  by  rich 
presents,  and  abundance  of  deference,  until  the  ignorant  sav- 
age— but  a  single  degree  above  the  brute — who,  until  then, 
had  never  been  sure  of  his  porridge  for  more  than  a  day 
ahead — took  airs  upon  himself,  and  became  one  of  the  most 
conceited  and  arrogant  lords  in  creation.  The  colonists  grew 
wiser  as  they  grew  stronger  ;  but  the  evil  was  already  done, 
and  we  are  reaping  some  of  the  bitter  fruits,  at  this  day,  of 
seed  unwisely  sown  in  that.  It  may  be  that  we  shall  yet  see 
the  experiment  tried  fairly." 

"Ah,  indeed — where?" 

"  In  Mexico,  by  the  Texans.  Let  the  vain,  capricious,  igno- 
rant and  dastardly  wretches,  who  now  occupy  and  spoil  the 
face  and  fortunes  of  the  former  country,  persevere  in  pressing 
war  upon  those  sturdy  adventurers,  and  their  doom  is  written. 
I  fear  it  may  be  the  sword ;  I  hope  it  may  be  the  milder  fate 
of  bondage  and  subjection.  Such  a  fate  would  save,  and 
raise  them  finally  to  a  far  higher  condition  than  they  have 
ever  before  enjoyed.  Thirty  thousand  Texans,  each  with  his 
horse  and  rifle,  would  soon  make  themselves  masters  of  the 
city  of  Montezuma,  and  then  may  you  see  the  experiment 
tried  upon  a  scale  sufficiently  extensive  to  make  it  a  fair  one. 
But^your  Indian  student,  drawn  from 

'  Susquebannah's  farthest  springs/ 

and  sent  to  Cambridge,  would   present  you  some  such  moral 
picture  as   that  of   the  prisoner  described  by  Sterne.     His 
chief   employment,  day   by  day,  would  consist  in  notching 
24* 


282  THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY. 

upon  his  stick  the  undeviating  record  of  his  daily  suffering. 
It  would  be,  to  him,  an  experiment  almost  as  full  of  torture 
as  that  of  the  Scottish  boot,  the  Spanish  thumbscrew,  or  any 
of  those  happy  devices  of  ancient  days,  for  impressing  pleas- 
ant principles  upon  the  mind,  by  impressing  unpleasant  feel- 
ings upon  the  thews,  joints  and  sinews.  I  wish  that  some 
one  of  our  writers,  familiar  with  mental  analysis,  would  make 
this  poem  of  Freneau  the  subject  of  a  story.  I  think  it  would 
yield  admirable  material.  To  develope  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  an  Indian  boy,  taken  from  his  people  ere  yet  he 
has  formed  such  a  knowledge  of  them,  or  of  others,  as  to 
have  begun  to  discuss  or  compare  their  differences — follow 
him  to  a  college  such  as  that  of  Princeton  or  Cambridge — 
watch  him  within  its  walls — amid  the  crowd,  but  not  of  it — 
looking  only  within  himself,  while  all  others  are  looking  into 
him,  or  trying  to  do  so — surrounded  by  active,  sharp-witted 
lads,  of  the  Anglo-Norman  race — undergoing  an  hourly  re- 
peated series  of  moral  spasms,  as  he  hears  them  wantonly  or 
thoughtlessly  dwell  upon  the  wild  and  ignorant  people  from 
•whom  he  is  chosen — listening,  though  without  seeming  to 
listen,  to  their  crude  speculations  upon  the  great  problem, 
which  is  to  be  solved  only  by  seeing  how  well  he  can  endure 
his  spasms,  and  what  use  he  will  make  of  his  philosophy,  if 
he  survives  it — then,  when  the  toils  of  study  and  the  tedious 
restraints  and  troubles  of  prayer  and  recitation  are  got  over, 
to  behold  and  describe  the  joy  with  which  the  happy  wretch 
flings  by  his  fetters,  when  he  is  dismissed  from  those  walls 
which  have  witnessed  his  tortures,  even  supposing  him  to 
remain  (which  is  very  unlikely)  until  his  course  of  study  is 
pronounced  to  be  complete  !  \\ith  what  curious  pleasure 
will  he  stop,  in  the  shadow  of  the  first  deep  forest,  to  tear 
from  his  limbs  those  garments  which  make  him  seem  unlike 
his  people  !  How  quick  will  be  the  beating  at  his  heart,  as 
he  endeavors  to  dispose  about  his  shoulders  the  blanket  robe, 
in  the  manner  in  which  it  is  worn  by  the  chief  warrior  of  his 
tribe !  With  what  keen  effort — should  he  have  had  any  pre- 
vious knowledge  of  his  kindred — will  he  seek  to  compel  his 
memory  to  restore  every,  the  slightest,  custom  or  peculiarity 
which  distinguished  them,  when  his  eyes  were  first  withdrawn 
from  the  parental  tribe ;  and  how  closely  will  he  imitate  their 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  283 

indomitable  pride,  and  lofty,  cold,  superiority  of  look  and 
gesture,  as,  at  evening,  he  enters  the  native  hamlet,  and  takes 
his  seat,  in  silence,  at  the  door  of  the  council  house,  waiting, 
without  a  word,  for  the  summons  of  the  elders  !" 

"  Quite  a  picture.  I  think  with  you,  that,  in  good  hands, 
such  a  subject  would  prove  a  very  noble  one." 

"  But  the  story  would  not  finish  here.  Supposing  all  this 
to  have  taken  place,  just  as  we  are  told  it  did — supposing  the 
boy  to  have  graduated  at  college,  and  to  have  flung  away  the 
distinction— to  have  returned,  as  has  been  described,  to  his 
costume — to  the  homes  and  habits  of  his  people  ; — it  is  not 
so  clear  that  he  will  fling  a(way  all  the  lessons  of  wisdom,  all 
the  knowledge  of  facts,  which  he  will  have  acquired  from  the 
tuition  of  the  superior  race.  A  natural  instinct,  which  is 
above  all  lessons,  must  be  complied  with ;  but,  this  done, 
and  when  the  first  tumults  of  his  blood  have  subsided,  which 
led  him  to  defeat  the  more  immediate  object  of  his  social 
training,  there  will  be  a  gradual  resumption  of  the  educa- 
tional influence  in  his  mind,  and  his  intellectual  habits  will 
begin  to  exercise  themselves  anew.  They  will  be  provoked, 
necessarily,  to  this  exercise,  by  what  he  beholds  around  him. 
He  will  begin  to  perceive,  in  its  true  aspects,  the  wretchedness 
of  that  hunter  state,  which,  surveyed  at  a  distance,  appeared 
only  the  embodiment  of  stoical  heroism  and  the  most  elevated 
pride.  Pie  will  see  and  lament  the  squalid  poverty  of  his 
people,  which,  his  first  lessons  in  civilization  must  have  shown 
him,  is  due  only  to  the  mode  of  life  and  pursuits  in  which 
they  are  engaged.  Their  beastly  intoxication  will  offend  his 
tastes;  their  superstition  and  ignorance — the  circumscribed 
limits  of  their  capacity  for  judging  of  things  and  relations, 
beyond  the  life  of  the  bird  or  beast  of  prey — will  awaken  in 
him  a  sense  of  shame,  when  he  feels  that  they  are  his  kin- 
dred. The  insecurity  of  their  liberties  will  awaken  his  fears, 
for  he  will  instantly  see  that  the  great  body  of  the  people,  in 
every  aboriginal  nation,  are  the  veriest  slaves  in  the  world  ; 
and  the  degrading  exhibitions  which  they  make,  in  their  filth 
and  drunkenness,  which  reduce  the  man  to  a  loathsomeness 
of  aspect  which  is  never  reached  by  the  vilest  beast  which  he 
hunts  or  scourges,  will  be  beheld  by  the  Indian  student  in 
very  lively  contrast  with  all  that  has  met  his  eyes  during  that 


284  THE    MORALS    OF    SLAVERY. 

novitiate  among  the  white  sagps,  the  processes  of  which  have 
been  to  him  so  humiliating  and  painful.  His  memory  reverts 
to  that  period  with  feelings  of  reconciliation.  The  torture  is 
over,  and  the  remembrance  of  former  pain,  endured  with 
manly  fortitude,  is  comparatively  a  pleasure.  A  necessary 
reaction  in  his  mind  takes  place ;  and,  agreeably  to  the  laws 
of  nature,  what  will,  and  what  should  follow,  but  that  he  will 
seek  to  become  the  tutor  and  the  reformer  of  his  people  ? 
They,  themselves,  will  tacitly  raise  him  to  this  position  ;  for 
the  man  of  the  forest  will  defer  even  to  the  negro  who  has 
been  educated  by  the  white  man.  He  will  try  to  teach  them 
habits  of  greater  method  and  industry  ;  he  will  overthrow 
the  altars  of  their  false  gods  ;  he  will  seek  to  bind  the  wan- 
dering tribes  together,  under  one  head,  and  in  one  nation  ; 
he  will  prescribe  uniform  laws  of  government.  He  will  suc- 
ceed in  some  things;  he  will  fail  in  others.  He  will  offend 
the  pride  of  the  self  conceited  and  the  mulish — the  priesthood 
will  be  the  first  to  d?clare  against  him — and  he  will  be  mur- 
dered, most  probably,  as  was  Romulus,  and  afterwards  deified. 
If  he  escapes  this  fate,  he  will  yet,  most  likely,  perish  from 
mortification  under  failure,  or  in  consequence  of  those  mental 
strifes  which  spring  from  that  divided  allegiance  between  the 
feelings  belonging  to  his  savage,  and  those  which  have  had 
their  origin  in  his  Christian  schools — those  natural  strifes 
between  the  acquisitions  of  civilization  on  the  one  hand,  and 
those  instinct  tendencies  of  the  blood  which  distinguish  his 
connection  with  the  inferior  race.  In  this  conflict,  he  will,  at 
length,  when  the  enthusiasm  of  his  youthful  zeal  has  become 
chilled  by  frequent  and  unexpected  defeat,  falter,  and  finally 
fail.  But  will  there  be  nothing  done  for  this  people  ?  Who 
can  say  ?  I  believe  that  no  seed  falls,  without  profit,  by  the 
wayside.  Even  if  the  truth  produces  no  immediate  fruits,  it 
forms  a  moral  manure,  which  fertilizes  the  otherwise  barren 
heart,  in  preparation  for  the  more  favorable  season.  The  In- 
dian student  may  fail,  as  his  teachers  did,  in  realizing  the  ob- 
ject for  which  he  has  striven  ;  and  this  sort  of  failure  is,  by 
the  way,  one  of  the  most  ordinary  of  human  allotment.  The 
desires  of  man's  heart,  by  an  especial  providence,  that  always 
wills  him  to  act  for  the  future,  generally  aim  at  something 
far  beyond  his  own  powers  of  performance.  But  the  labor 


THE  MORALS  OF  SLAVERY.  285 

has  not  been  taken  in  vain,  in  the  progress  of  successive  ages, 
which  has  achieved  even  a  small  part  of  its  legitimate  purpo- 
ses. The  Indian  student  has  done  for  his  people  much  more 
than  the  white  man  achieves,  ordinarily,  for  his  generation,  if 
he  has  only  secured  to  their  use  a  single  truth  which  they 
knew  not  before — if  he  has  overthrown  only  one  of  their 
false  gods — if  he  has  smitten  off  the  snaky  head  of  only  one 
of  their  superstitious  prejudices.  If  he  has  added  to  their 
fields  of  corn  a  field  of  millet,  he  has  induced  one  farther 
physical  step  towards  moral  improvement.  Nay,  if  there  be 
no  other  result,  the  very  deference  which  they  will  have  paid 
him,  as  the  elitve  of  the  white  man,  will  be  a  something  gained, 
of  no  little  importance,  towards  inducing  their  more  ready, 
though  still  tardy,  adoption  of  the  Jaws  and  guidance  of  the 
superior  race." 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAYERY/ 


IN  looking  to  the  texture  of  the  population  of  our  country, 
there  is  nothing  so  well  calculated  to  arrest  the  attention  of 
the  observer,  as  the  existence  of  negro  slavery  throughout  a 
large  portion  of  the  confederacy.  A  race  of  people,  differing 
from  us  in  color  and  in  habits,  and  vastly  inferior  in  the  scale 
of  civilization,  have  been  increasing  and  spreading,  "growing 
with  our  growth,  and  strengthening  with  our  strength,"  until 
they  have  become  intertwined  and  intertwisted  with  every 
fibre  of  society.  Go  through  our  Southern  country,  and  every 
where  you  see  the  negro  slave  by  the  side  of  the  white  man ; 
you  find  him  alike  in  the  mansion  of  the  rich,  the  cabin  of 
the  poor,  the  workshop  of  the,  mechanic,  and  the  field  of  the 
planter.  Upon  the  contemplation  of  a  population  framed 
like  this,  a  curious  and  interesting  question  readily  suggests 
itself  to  the  inquiring  mind  : — Can  these  two  distinct  races  of 
people,  now  living  together  as  master  and  servant,  be  ever 
separated  ?  Can  the  black  be  sent  back  to  his  African  home, 
or  will  the  day  ever  arrive  when  he  can  be  liberated  from  his 
thraldom,  and  mount  upwards  in  the  scale  of  civilization  and 
rights,  to  an  equality  with  the  white  ?  This  is  a  question  of 

*  Review  of  the  debate  in  the  Virginia  Legislature,  1831-'32.  By 
THOMAS  R.  DEW,  Professor  of  History,  Metaphysics,  and  Political  Law, 
William  and  Mary  College,  Virginia.  Abol.tiOn  of  Slavery.  1.  De- 
bate in  the  Virginia  Legislature  of  '31  '32,  on  the  Abo  ition  of  Slavery. 
Richmond.  2.  Letter  of  Appomattox  to  the  People  ot  Virginia,  on 
the  subject  of  the  Abolition  of  Slavery.  Richmond. 


288  PEOFESSOE  DEW  ON  SLAVEEY. 

truly  momentous  character ;  it  involves  the  whole  framework 
of'society,  contemplates  a  separation  of  its  elements,  or  a 
radical  change  in  their  relation,  and  requires,  for  its  adequate 
investigation,  the  most  complete  and  profound  knowledge  of 
the  nature  and  sources  of  national  wealth  and  political  ag-- 
grandizement,  an  acquaintance  with  the  elastic  and  powerful 
spring  of  population,  and  the  causes  which  invigorate  or  pa- 
ralyze its  energies,  together  with  a  clear  perception  of  the 
varying  rights  of  man,  amid  all  the  changing  circumstances 
by  which  he  may  be  surrounded,  and  a  profound  knowledge 
of  all  the  principles,  passions,  and  susceptibilities  which  make 
up  the  moral  nature  of  our  species,  and  according  as  they  are 
acted  upon  by  adventitious  circumstances,  alter  our  condition, 
and  produce  all  that  wonderful  variety  of  character  which  so 
strongly  marks  and  characterizes  the  human  family.  Well, 
then,  does  it  behoove  even  the  wisest  statesmen  to  approach 
this  august  subject  with  the  utmost  circumspection  and  diffi- 
dence; its  wanton  agitation  even  is  pregnant  with  mischief; 
but  rash  and  hasty  action  threatens,  in  our  opinion,  the  whole 
Southern  country  with  irremediable  ruin.  The  evil  of  yes- 
terday's growth  may  be  extirpated  to-day,  and  the  vigor  of 
society  may  heal  the  wound  ;  but  that  which  is  the  growth  of 
ages,  may  require  ages  to  remove.  The  Parliament  of  Great 
Britain,  with  all  its  philanthropic  zeal,  guided  by  the  wisdom 
and  eloquence  of  such  statesmen  as  Chatham,  Fox,  Burke, 
Pitt,  Canning  and  Brougham,  has  never  yet  seriously  agitated 
this  question,  in  regard  to  the  West  India  possessions.  Re- 
volutionary France,  actuated  by  the  most  intemperate  and 
phrenetic  zeal  for  liberty  and  equality,  attempted  to  legislate 
the  free  people  of  color,  in  the  Island  of  St.  Domingo,  into 
all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  whites  ;  and,  but  a  season 
afterwards,  convinced  of  her  madness,  she  attempted  to  retrace 
her  steps.  But  it  was  too  late.  The  deed  had  been  done. 


. 

PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  289 

The  bloodiest  and  most  shocking  insurrection  ever  recorded 
in  the  annals  of  history  had  broken  out,  and  the  whole  Island 
was  involved  in  frightful  carnage  and  anarchy,  and  France,  in 
the  end,  has  been  stript  "of  the  brightest  jewel  in  her  crown," 
the  fairest  and  most  valuable  of  all  her  colonial  possessions. 
Since  the  revolution,  France,  Spain  and  Portugal,  large  owners 
of  colonial  possessions,  have  not  only  not  abolished  slavery  in 
their  colonies,  but  have  not  even  abolished  the  slave  trade  in 
practice. 

In  our  Southern  slaveholding  country,  the  question  of  eman- 
cipation has  never  been  seriously  discussed  in  any  of  our 
legislatures,  until  the  whole  subject,  under  the  most  exciting 
circumstances,  was,  during  the  last  winter,  brought  up  for 
di>cussion  in  the  Virginia  Legislature,  and  plans  of  partial  or 
total  abolition  were  earnestly  pressed  upon  the  attention  of 
that  body.  It  is  well  known  that,  during  the  last  summer,  in 
the  county  of  Southampton,  in  Virginia,  a  few  slaves,  led  on 
by  Nat  Turner,  rose  in  the  night,  and  murdered,  in  the  most 
inhuman  and  shocking  manner,  between  sixty  and  seventy  of 
the  unsuspecting  whites  of  that  county.  The  new?,,  of  course, 
was  rapidly  diffused,  and,  with  it,  consternation  and  dismay 
were  spread  throughout  the  State,  destroying,  for  a  time,  all 
feeling  of  security  and  confidence  ;  and,  even  when  subsequent 
development  had  proved  that  the  conspiracy  had  been  origi- 
nated by  a  fanatical  negro  preacher,  (whose  confessions  prove, 
beyond  a  doubt,  mental  aberration,)  and  that  this  conspiracy 
embraced  but  few  slaves,  all  of  whom  had  paid  the  penalty 
of  their  crimes,  still  the  excitement  remained,  still  the  repose 
of  the  commonwealth  was  disturbed,  for  the  ghastly  horrors 
of  the  Southampton  tragedy  could  not  immediately  be  ban- 
ished from  the  mind — and  rumor,  too,  with  her  thousand 
tongues,  was  busily  engaged  in  spreading  tales  of  disaffection, 
plots,  insurrections,, and  even  massacres,  which  frightened  the 
25 


290  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERT. 

timkl,  and  harassed  and  mortified  the  whole  of  the  slavehold- 
ing  population.  During  this  period  of  excitement,  when  rea- 
son was  almost  banished  from  the  mind,  and  the  imagination 
was  suffered  to  conjure  up  the  most  appalling  phantoms,  and 
picture  to  itself  a  crisis,  in  the  vista  of  futurity,  when  the 
overwhelming  numbers  of  the  blacks  would  rise  superior  to 
all  restraint,  and  involve  the  fairest  portion  of  our  land  in 
universal  ruin  and  desolation,  we  are  not  to  wonder  that,  even 
in  the  lower  part  of  Virginia,  many  should  have  seriously 
inquired  if  this  supposed  monstrous  evil  could  not  be  removed 
from  our  bosom  ?  Some  looked  to  the  removal  of  the  free 
people  of  color,  by  the  effo.  ts  of  the  Colonization  Society,  as 
an  antidote  to  all  our  ills.  Some  were  disposed  to  strike  at 
the  root  of  the  evil :  to  call  on  the  General  Government  for 
aid,  and,  by  the  labors  of  Hercules,  to  extirpate  the  curse  of 
slavery  from  the  land.  Others  again,  who  could  not  bear  that 
Virginia  should  stand  towards  the  General  Government  (whose 
unconstitutional  action  she  had  ever  been  foremost  to  resist) 
in  the  attitude  of  a  suppliant,  looked  forward  to  the  legislative 
action  of  the  State,  as  capable  of  achieving  the  desired  result. 
In  this  state  of  excitement  and  unallayed  apprehension,  the 
Legislature  met,  and  plans  for  abolition  were  proposed,  and 
earnestly  advocated  in  debate. 

Upon  the  impropriety  of  this  debate,  we  beg  leave  to  mr.ke 
a  few  observations.  Any  scheme  of  abolition,  proposed  so 
soon  after  the  Southampton  tragedy,  would  necessarily  appear 
to  be  the  result  of  that  most  inhuman  massacre.  Suppose 
the  negroes,  then,  to  be  really  anxious  for  their  emancipation, 
no  matter  on  what  terms,  would  not  the  extraordinary  effect 
produced  on  the  Legislature  by  the  Southampton  insurrection, 
in  all  probability,  have  a  tendency  to  excite  another?  And 
we  must  recollect,  from  the  nature  of  things,  no  plan  of  abo- 
lition could  act  suddenly  on  the  whole  mass  of  slave  popula- 


* 

PROFESSOR  DEW  OK  SLAVERY.  291 

tion  in  the  State.  Mr.  Randolph's  was  not  even  to  commence 
its  operation  till  1810.  Waiting,  then,  one  year  or  more, 
until  the  excitement  could  be  allayed,  and  the  empire  of  rea- 
son could  once  more  have  been  established,  would  surely  have 
been  productive  of  no  injurious  consequences  ;  and,  in  the 
mean  time,  a  Legislature  could  have  been  selected,  which 
would  much  better  have  represented  the  \5ews  and  wishes  of 
their  constituents,  on  this  vital  question.  Virginia  could  have 
ascertained  the  sentiments  and  wishes  of  other  slaveholding 
States,  whose  concurrence,  if  not  absolutely  necessary,  might 
be  highly  desirable,  and  should  have  been  sought  after  and 
attended  to,  at  least,  as  a  matter  of  State  courtesy.  Added 
to  this,  the  texture  of  the  Legislature  was  not  of  that  charac- 
ter calculated  to  ensure  the  confidence  of  the  people,  in  a 
movement  of  this  kind.  If  ever  there  was  a  question  di-bated 
in  a  deliberative  body,  which  called  for  the  most  exalted  talent, 
the  longest  and  most  tried  experience,  the  utmost  circumspec- 
tion and  caution,  a  complete  exemption  from  prejudice  a.ul 
.undue  excitement,  where  both  are  apt  to  prevail,  an  ardent 
and  patriotic  desire  to  advance  the  vital  interests  of  the  State, 
uncombined  with  mere  desire  for  vain  and  ostentatious  display, 
and  with  no  view  to  party  or  geographical  divisions,  that 
question  was  the  question  of  the  abolition  of  slavery,  in  the 
Virginia  Legislature.  "Grave  and  reverend  seniors,"  "the 
very  fathers  of  the  Republic,"  were  indeed  required,  for  the 
settlement  of  a  question  of  such  magnitude.  It  appears, 
however,  that  the  Legislature  was  composed  of  an  unusual 
number  of  young  and  inexperienced  members,  elected  in  the 
month  of  April,  previous  to  the  Southampton  massacre,  and 
at  a  time  of  profound  tranquillity  and  repose,  when,  of  course, 
the.  people  were  not  disposed  to  call  from  their  retirement 
their  most  distinguished  and  experienced  citizens. 

We  are  very  ready  to  admit,  that  in   point  of  ability  and 


292  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

eloquence,  the  debate  transcended  our  expectations.  One  of 
the  leading  political  papers  in  the  State  remarked,  "  We  have 
never  heard  any  debate  so  eloquent,  so  sustained,-and  in  which 
so  great 'a  number  of  speakers  had  appeared,  and  commanded 
the  attention  of  so  numerous  and  intelligent  an  audience." 
.»..."  Day  after  day,  multitudes  throng  to  the  capital, 
and  have  been  compensated  by  eloquence  which  would  have 
illustrated  Rome  or  Athens."  But,  however  fine  might  have 
been  the  rhetorical  display,  however  ably  some  isolated  points 
may  have  been  discussed,  still  we  affirm,  with  confidence,  that 
no  enlarged,  wise  and  practical  plan  of  operations  was  pro- 
posed by  the  abolitionists.  We  will  go  farther,  and  assert 
that  their  arguments',  in  most  cases,  were  of  a  wild  and  in- 
temperate character,  based  upon  false  principles,  and  assump- 
tions of  the  most  vicious  and  alarming  kind,  subversive  of  the 
rights  of  property  and  the  order  and  tranquillity  of  society, 
and  portending  to  the  whole  slaveholding  country — if  they 
ever  shall  be  followed  out  in  practice — the  most  inevitable 
and  ruinous  consequences.  Far  be  it,  however,  from  us,  to 
accuse  the  abolitionists  in  the  Virginia  Legislature  of  any 
settled  or  malevolent  design  to  overturn  or  convulse  the  fabric 

O 

of  society.  We  have  no  doubt  that  they  were  acting  con- 
scientiously for  the  best ;  but  it  often  happens  that  frail,  im- 
perfect man,  in  the  too  ardent  anJ  confident  pursuit  of  imagi- 
nary good,  runs  upon  his  utter  destruction. 

We  have  not  formed  our  opinion  lightly  upon  this  subject ; 
we  have  given  to  the  vital  question  of  abolition  the  most  ma- 
ture and  intense  consideration  which  we  a^re  capable  of  be- 
stowing, and  we  have  come  to  the  conclusion — a  conclusion 
which  seems  to  be  sustained  by  facts  and  reasoning  as  irre- 
sistible as  the  demonstration  of  the  mathematician — that  every 
plan  of  emancipation  and  deportation  which  we  can  possibly 
conceive,  is  totally  impracticable.  We  shall  endeavor  to  prove 


«  PEOFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  293 

that  the  attempt  to  execute  these  plans  can  only  have  a  ten- 
dency to  increase  all  the  evils  of  which  we  complain,  as  re- 
sulting from  slavery.  If  this  be  true,  then  the  great  question 
of  abolition  will  necessarily  be  reduced  to  the  question  of 
emancipation,  with  a  permission  to  remain,  which,  we  think, 
can  easily  be  shown  to  be  utterly  subversive  of  the  interests, 
security  and  happiness  of  both  the  blacks  and  whites,  and 
consequently,  hostile  to  every  principle  of  expediency,  moral- 
ity, and  religion.  We  have  heretofore  doubted  the  propriety, 
even,  of  too  frequently  agitating,  especially  in  a  public  man- 
ner, the  question  of  abolition,  in  consequence  of  the  injurious 
effects  which  might  be  produced  on  the  slave  population. 
But  the  Virginia  Legislature,  in  its  zeal  for  discussion,  boldly 
set  aside- all  prudential  considerations  of  this  kind,  and  openly 
and  publicly  debated  the  subject,  before  the  world.  The  seal 
has  now  been  broken — the  example  has  been  set  from  a  high 
quarter;  we  shall,  therefore,  waive  all  considerations  of  a 
prudential  character,  which  have  hitherto  restrained  us,  and 
boldly  grapple  with  the  abolitionists  and  this  great  question. 
We  fear  not  the  result,  so  far  as  truth,  justice  and  expediency 
alone  are  concerned.  But  we  must  be  permitted  to  say  that 
we  do  most  deeply  dread  the  effects  of  misguided  philanthro- 
py, and  the  marked,  and,  we  had  like  to  have  said,  imperti- 
nert  intrusion  in  this  matter,  of  those  who  have  no  interest 
at  stake,  and  who  have  not  intimate  and  minute  knowledge 
of  the  whole  subject,  so  absolutely  necessary  to  wise  action. 

Without  further  preliminary,  then,  we  shall  advance  to  the 
discussion  of  the  question  of  abolition,  noticing  not  only  the 
plans  proposed  in  the  Virginia  Legislature,  but  some  others, 
likewise.  And,  as  the  subject  of  slavery  has  been  considered 
in  every  point  of  view,  and  pronounced,  in  the  abstract,  at  least, 
as  entirely  contrary  to  the  law  of  nature,  we  propose  taking,  in 
25* 


294  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

the  first  place,  aliasty  view  of  the  origin  of  slavery,  and  point  out 
the  influence  which  it  has  exerted  ou  the  progress  of  civilization, 
and  to  this  purpose  it  will  be  necessary  to  look  back  to  other 
ages — cast  a  glance  at  nations  differing  from  us  in  civilization 
and  manners,  and  see  whether  it  is  possible  to  mount  to  the 
source  of  slavery. 

1.  Oriyin  of  Slavery,  and  its  Effects  on  the  Progress  of 
Civilization. 

Upon  an  examination  of  the  nature  of  man,  we  find  him 
to  be  almost  entirely  the  creature  of  circumstances — his  habits 
and  sentiments  are,  in  a  great  measure,  the  growth  of  adven- 
titious causes — hence  the  endless  variety  and  condition  of  our 
species.  We  are  almost  ever  disposed,  however,  to  identify 
the  course  of  nature  with  the  progress  of  events  -in  our  own 
narrow  contracted  sphere  ;  we  look  upon  any  deviation  from 
the  constant  round  in  which  we  have  been  spinning  out  the 
thread  of  our  existence,  as  a  departure  from  nature's  great 
system,  and,  from  a  known  principle  of  our  nature,  our  first 
impulse  is  to  condemn.  It  is  thus  that  the  man  born  and 
matured  in  the  lap  of  freedom,  looks  upon  slavery  as  unna- 
tural and  horrible ;  and,  if  he  be  not  instructed  upon  the 
subject,  is  sure  to  think  that  so  unnatural  a  condition  could 
never  exist,  but  in  few  countries  or  ages,  in  violation  of  every 
law  of  justice  or  humanity  ;  and  he  is  almost  disposed  to 
implore  the  divine  wrath,  to  shower  down  the  consuming  fire 
of  heaven  on  the  Sodoms  and  Gomorrahs  of  the  world,  where 
this  unjust  practice  prevails. 

But,  when  he  examines  into  the  past  condition  of  mankind, 
he  stands  amazed  at  the  fact  which  'history  develops  to  his 
view.  "  Almost  every  page  of  ancient  history,"  says  Wallace, 
in  his  Dissertation  on  the  Numbers  of  Mankind,  "  demon- 
strates the  great  multitudes  of  slaves ;  which  gives  occasion 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  295 

to  a  melancholy  reflection,  that  the  world,  when  best  peopled, 
was  not  a  world  of  freemen,\)ut  of  slaves."*  "  And  in  every 
age  and  country,  until  times  comparatively  recent,"  says  Hal- 
lam,  "personal  servitude  appears  to  have  been  the  lot  of  a 
large,  perhaps  the  greater  portion  of  mankind."! 

Slavery  was  established  and  sanctioned  by  divine  authority, 
among  even  the  elect  of  heaven,  the  favored  children  of  Israel. 
Abraham,  the  founder  of  this  interesting  nation,  and  the  cho- 
sen servant  of  the  Lord,  was  the  owner  of  hundreds  of  slaves. 
That  magnificent  shrine,  the  Temple  of  Solomon,  was  reared 
by  the  hands  of  slaves.  Egypt's  venerable  and  enduring  piles 
were  reared  by  similar  hands.  Slavery  existed  in  Assyria  and 
Babylon.  The  ten  tribes  of  Israel  were  carried  off  in  bondage 
to  the  former  by  Shalmanezar,  and  the  two  tribes  of  Judah 
were  subsequently  carried  in  triumph  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  to 
beautify  and  adorn  the  latter.  Ancient  Phoenicia  and  Gar- 
thage  had  slaves.  The  Greeks  and  Trojans,  at  the  siege  of 
Troy,  had  slaves.  Athens,  and  Sparta,  and  Thebes,  indeed 
the  whole  Grecian  and  Roman  worlds,  had  more  slaves  than 
freemen.  And  in  those  ages  which  succeeded  the  extinction 
of  the  Roman  empire  in  the  West,  "  servi,  or  slaves,"  says 
Dr.  Robertson,  "seem  to  have  been  the  most  numerous 
class."J  Even  in  this  day  of  civilization,  and  the  regeneration 
of  governments,  slavery  is  far  from  being  confined  to  our 
hemisphere  alone.  The  serf  and  labor  rents  prevalent  through- 
out the  whole  of  Eastern  Europe,  and  a  portion  of  Western 
Asia,  and  the  ryot  rents  throughout  the  extensive  and  over 
populated  countries  of  the  East,  and  over  the  dominions  of 
the  Porte  in  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa,  but  too  conclusively 

*  P.  93,  Edinburgh  edition. 

\  Miildle  Ages,  vol.  1,'p.  120, Philapelphia edition. 

t  See  Robertson's  Works,  vol.  3,  p.  186. 


296  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

mark  the  existence  of  slavery  over  these  boundless  regions. 
And  when  we  turn  to  the  continent  of  Africa,  we  find  slavery, 
in  all  its  most  horrid  forms,  existing  throughout  its  whole 
extent,  the  slaves  being  at  least  three  times  more  numerous 
than  the  freemen  ;  so  that,  looking  to  the  whole  world,  we 
may,  even  now,  with  confidence  assert,  that  slaves,  or  those 
whose  condition  is  infinitely  worse,  form  by  far  the  largest 
portion  of  the  human  race  ! 

Well, .then,  may  we  here  pause,  and  inquire  a  moment — 
for  it  is  surely  worthy  of  inquiry — how  has  slavery  arisen  and 
thus  spread  over  our  globe  ?  We  shall  not  pretend  to  enu- 
merate accurately,  and  in  detail,  all  the  causes  which  have 
led  to  slavery;  but  we  believe  the  principal  may  be  summed 
up  under  the  following  heads  :  1st.  Laws  of  War  ;  2d.  State 
of  Property  and  Feebleness  of  Government;  3d.  Bargain 
and  Sale  ;  and  4th.  Crime. 

1st.  Laws  of  War. — There  is  no  circumstance  which  more 
honorably  and  creditably  characterizes  modern  warfare,  than 
the  humanity  with  which  it  is  wagfd,  and  the  mihlness  with 
which  captives  are  treated.  Civilized  nations,  with  but  few 
exceptions,  now  act  in  complete  conformity  with  the  wise  rule 
laid  down  by  Grotius,  "  that  in  war  we  have  a  right  only  to 
the  use  of  those  means  which  have  a  connection  morally  ne- 
cessary with  the  end  in  view."  Consequently,  we  have  no 
just  right,  where  this  rule  is  adhered  to  by  our  adversary,  to 
enslave  or  put  to  death  enemies  non-combatant,  who  may  be 
in  our  possession  :  for  this,  in  modern  times,  among  civilized 
nations,  is  not  morally  necessary  to  the  attainment  of  the  end 
in  view.  On  the  contrary,  if  such  a  practice  were  commenced 
now,  it  would  only  increase  the  calamities  of  the  belligerents, 
by  converting  their  wars  into  wars  of  extermination,  or  rapine 
and  plunder,  terminated  generally  with  infinitely  less  advan- 
tage, and  more  difficulty  to  each  of  the  parties.  But  humane 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  297 

and  advantageous  as  this  mitigated  practice  appears,  we  are 
not  to  suppose  it  universal,  or  that  it  has  obtained  in  all  ages. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  growth  of  mode.rn  civilization,  and 
has  been  confined,  in  a  great  measure,  to  civilized  Europe  and 
its  colonies. 

Writers  on  the  progress  of  society  designate  three  stages  in 
which  man  has  been  found  to  exist.  First,  the  hunting  or 
fishing  state  ;  second,  the  pastoral  ;  third,  agricultural.  Man, 
in  the  hunting  state,  has  ever  been  found  to  wage  war  in  the 
most  cruel  and  implacable  manner,  extermination  being  the 
object  .of  the  belligerent  tribes.  Never  has  there  been  a  finer 
field  presented  to  the  philosopher,  for  a  complete  investigation 
of  the  character  of  any  portion  of  our  species,  than  the  whole 
American  hemisphere  presented,  for  the  complete  investigation 
of  the  character  of  savages,  in  the  hunting  and  fishing  stale. 

Dr.  Robertson  has  given  us  a  most  appalling  description  of 
the  cruelties  with  which  savagre  warfare  was  waged,  through- 
out the  whole  continent  of  America,  and  the  barbarous  man- 
ner in  which  prisoners  were  everywhere  put  to  death.  lie 
justly  observes,  that  the  bare  description  is  enough  to  chill  the 
heart  with  horror,  wherever  men  have  been  accustomed,  by 
milder  institutions,  to  respect  their  species,  and  to  melt  into 
tenderness  at  the  sight  of  human  sufferings.  The  prisoners 
are  tied  naked  to  a  stake,  but  so  as  to  be  at  liberty  to  move 
round  it.  All  who  are  present — men,  women  and  children — 
rush  upon  them  like  furies.  Every  species  of  torture  is  applied, 
that  the  rancor  of  revenge  can  invent:  some  burn  their  limbs 
with  red  hot  iron,' some  mangle  their  bodies  with  knives, 
others  tear  their  flesh  from  their  bones,  pluck  out  their  nails 
by  the  roots,  and  rend  and  twist  their  sinews.  Nothing  sets 
bounds  to  their  rage  but  the  dread  of  abridging  the  duration 
of  their  vengeance,  by  hastening  the  death  of '  the  sufferers  ; 
and  such  is  their  cruel  ingenuity  in  tormenting,  that,  by  avoid- 


298  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

ing  industriously  to  hurt  any  vital  part,  they  often  prolong 
the  scene  of  anguish  for  several  days."* 

Let  us  now  inquire  into  the  cause  of  such  barbarous  prac- 
tices, and  we  shall  find  that  they  must  be  imputed  principally 
to  the  passion  of  revenge.  In  the  language  of  tlie  same  elo- 
quent writer  whom  we  have  just  quoted,  "in  small  com- 
munities, every  man  is  touched  with  the  injury  or  affront 
offered  to  the  body  of  which  he  is  a  member,  as  if  it  were  a 
personal  attack  on  his  own  honor  and  safety.  War,  which, 
between  extensive  kingdoms,  is  carried  on  with  little  animosi- 
ty, is  prosecuted  by  small  tribes  with  all  the  rancor  of  a  pri- 
vate quarrel.  When  polished  nations  have  obtained  the 
glory  of  victory,  or  have  acquired  an  addition  of  territory, 
they  may  terminate  a  war  with  honor.  But  savages  are  not 
satisfied,  until  they  extirpate  the  community  which  is  the 
v  object  of  their  hatred.  They  tight  not  to  conquer,  but  de- 
^stroy."  "  The  desire  of  vengeance  is  the  first,  and  almost  the 
only  principle,  which  a  savage  instils  into  the  minds  of  his 
children.  The  desire  of  vengeance,  which  takes  possession  of 
the  hearts  of  savages,  resembles  the  instinctive  rage  of  an 
animal,  rather  than  the  passion  of  a  man."f  Unfortunately, 
too,  interest  conspires  with  the  desire  of  revenge,  to  render 
savage  warfare  horrible.  The  wants  of  the  savage,  it  is  true, 
are  few  and  simple ;  but,  limited  as  they  are,  according  to 
their  mode  of  life,  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  supply  them. 
Hunting  and  fishing  afford,  at  best,  a  very  precarious  subsist- 
ence. Throughout  the  extensive  regions  of  America,  popu- 
lation was  found  to  be  most  sparsely  settled ;  but,  thin  as  it 
•was,  it  was  most  wretchedly  and  scantily  supplied  with  pro- 
visions. Under  these  circumstances,  prisoners  of  war  could 

*  Pee  Robertson's  America,  Phil,  ed.,  vol.  1,  p.  197. 
f  Ibid.,  vol.  1,  pp.  192,  193. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  299 

not  be  kept,  for  the  feeding  of  them  would  be  sure  to  pro- 
duce a  famine.*  Tiny  would  not  be  sent  back  to  their  tribe, 
for  that  would  strengthen  the  enemy.  They  could  not  even 
make  slaves  of  them,  for  their  labor  would  have  been  worth- 
less. Death,  then,  was,  unfortunately,  the  punishment,  which 
was  prompted  both  by  interest  and  revenge.  And,  accord- 
ingly, throughout  the  whole  continent  of  America,  we  find, 
with  but  one  or  two  exceptions,  that  this  was  the  dreadful 
fate  which  awaited  the  prisoners  of  all  classes,  men,  women 
and  children.  In  fact,  this  has  been  the  practice  of  war, 
wherever  man  was  found  in  the  first  stages  of  society,  living 
on  the  precarious  subsistence  of  the  chase.  The  savages  of 
the  Islands  of  Andaman,  in  the  East,  supposed  by  many  to 
be  lowest  in  the  scale  of  civilization,  of  Van  Diemen's  Land, 
of  New  Holland,  and  of  the  Islands  of  the  South  Pacific,!  are 
all  alike — they  all  agree  in  the  practice  of  exterminating"  ene- 
mies, by  the  most  perfidious  and  cruel  conduct,  and,  through- 
out many  extensive  regions,  the  horrid  practice  of  feasting  on 
the  murdered  prisoners  prevailed.J 

*  "  If  a  few  Spaniards  settled  in  any  district,  such  a  email  addition 
of  supernumerary  mouths  soon  exhausted  their  tcanty  store,  and  brought 
on  famine." — RoberUon,  p.  182. 

t  Captain  Cook  says,  of  the  natives  in  the  neighborhood  of  Queen 
Charlotte's  Sound,  "If  I  had  followed  ilie  advice  of  all  our  pieiended 
friends,  1  might  have  extirpaied  the  whole  race,  for  the  people  of  each 

hamlet  or  village,  by  turns,  npplii  d  to  me  to  deitoj  the  other 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  New  Zealanders  mutt  live  in  peipetual  ap- 
prehension.of  being  destroyed  by  each  other." 

t  "  Among  the  Iroquois,"  says  Dr.  Robeitson,  "  the  phrase  by  which 
they  express  their  resolution  of  making  war  against  an  enemy  i?,  •  let 
us  go  and  eat  that  nation."  If  they  solic  t  the  aid  of  a  neighboring 
tr.be,  they  invite  it  to  '  eat  broth  ni;.de  of  the  flesh  of  their  enemies.'  " 
Among  the  Abnaki-*,  according  to  the  "  Lettres  Ed,f.  et  Curieuse,"  the 
chief^  after  dividing  his  warriors  into  parties,  says  to  each,  "  to  you  is 


300  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

What  is  there,  let  us  ask,  which  is  calculated  to  arrest  this 
horrid  practice,  and  to  communicate  an  impulse  towards  civi- 
lization ?  Strange  as  it  may  sound  in  modern  ears,  it  is  the 
institution  of  property  and  the  existence  of  slavery.  Judging 
from  the  universality  of  the  fact,  we  may  assert  that  domestic 
slavery  seems  to  be  the  only  means  of  fixing  the  wanderer  to 
the  soil,  moderating  his  savage  temper,  mitigating  the  horrors 
of  war,  and  abolishing  the  practice  of  murdering  the  captives. 
In  the  pure  hunting  state,  man  has  little  idea  of  property, 
and  consequently  there  is  little  room  for  distinction,  except 
what  arises  from  personal  qualities.  People  in  this  state  re- 
tain, therefore,  a  high  sense  of  equality  and  independence. 
It  is  a  singular  fact,  that  the  two  extremes  of  society  are  most 
favorable  to  liberty  and  equality — the  most  savage,  and  the 
most  refined  and  enlightened—  the  former,  in  consequence  of 
•«the  absence  of  the  institution  of  property,  and  the  latter  from 
the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  the  consequent  capability  of 
self-government.  The  former  is  characterized  by  a  wild,  li- 
centious independence,  totally  subversive  of  all  order  and 
tranquillity  ;  and  the  latter  by  a  well-ordered,  well-established 
liberty,  which,  while  it  leaves  to  each  the  enjoyment  of  the 
fruits  of  his  industry,  secures  hirn  against  the  lawless  violence 
and  rapine  of  his  neighbors.  Throughout  the  whole  Ameri- 
can continent,  this  equality  and  savage  independence  seem  to 
have  prevailed,  except  in  the  comparatively  great  kingdoms 
of  Mexico  and  Peru,  where  the  right  to  property  was  estab- 
lished. 

So  soon  as  the  private  right  to  .property  is  established, 


given  such  a  hamlet  to  eat,  to  you  such  a  village,"  etc.  Captain  Cook, 
in  his  third  voyage,  says  of  the  New  Zealanders,  "  Perhaps  the  desire 
of  making  a  good  meal  (on  prisoners)  is  no  small  inductrnerit "  to  go 
to  war. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  301. 

slavery  commences  ;  and  with  the  institution  of  slavery,  the 
cruelties  of  war  begin  to  diminish.  The  chief  finds  it  to  his 
interest  to  make  slaves  of  his  captives,  rather  than  put  them 
to  death.  This  system  commences  with  the  shepherd  state, 
and  is  Consummated  in  the  agricultural.  Slavery,  therefore, 
seetns  to  be  the  chief  means  of  mitigating  the  horrors  of  war. 
Accordingly,  wherever,  among  barbarous  nations,  they  have 
so  far  advanced  in  civilization  as  to  understand  the  use  wl.ich 
may  be  made  of  captives,  by  converting  them  into  slaves, 
there  the  cruelties  of  war  are  found  to  be  lessened. 

Throughout  the  whole  continent  of  Africa,  in  consequence 
of  the  universal  prevalence  of  slavery,  war  is  not  conducted 
with  the  same  barbarous  ferocity  as  by  the  American  Indian. 
And  hence  it  happens  that  some  nations  become  most  CJ  uel 
to  those  whom  they  would  most  wish  to  favor.  Thus,  on  the 
borders  of  Persia,  some  of  the  tribes  of  Tartars  massacre  all 
the  true  believers  who  fall  into  their  hands,  but  preserve  he- 
retics and  infidels,  because  their  religion  forbids  them  to  make 
slaves  of  true  believers,  and  allows  them  to  use  or  sell  all 
others,  at  their  pleasure.* 

In  looking  to  the  history  of  the  world,  we  find  that  inte- 
rest, and  interest  alone,  has  been  enabled  successfully  to  war 
against  the  fiercer  passion  of  revenge.  The  only  instance  of 
mildness  in  war,  among  the  savages  of  North  America,  results 
from  the  operation  of  interest.  Sometimes,  .when  the  tribe 
has  suffered  great  loss  of  n ambers,  and  stands  very  much  in 
need  of  recruits,  the  prisoner  is  saved,  and  adopted  (says  Ro- 
bertson) as  a  member  of  the  nation.  Pastoral  nations  require 
but  few  slaves,  and,  consequently,  they  save  but  few  prisoners 
for  this  purpose.  Agricultural  require  more,  and  this  state 

*  Tacitus  tella  us  that  civil  wars  are  always  the  most  cruel,  because 
the  prisoners  are  nut  made  slaves. 
26 


302  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

is  the  most  advantageous  to  slavery.  Prisoners  of  war  are 
generally  spared  by  such  nations,  in  consideration  of  the  use 
which  may  be  made  of  their  labor. 

It  is  curious,  in  this  respect,  to  contemplate  the  varied  suc- 
cess with  which,  under  various  circumstances,  the  principle  of 
self-interest  combats  that  of  vengeance.  The  barbarians  who 
overran  the  Roman  Empire  existed  principally  in  the  pastoral 
state.  They  brought  alung  w  ith  them  their  wives  and  children, 
and  consequently  they  required  extensiA-e  regions  for  their  sup- 
port, and  but  few  slaves.  \Ve  find,  accordingly,  they  waged  a 
most  cruel,  extermmating  war,  not  even  sparing  women  and 
children.  "  Hence,"  says  Dr.  Robertson,  in  his  preliminary  vol- 
ume to  the  History  of  Charles  V.,  "  if  a  man  were  called  to  fix 
upon  a  period  in  the  history 'of  the  world,  during  which  the 
condition  of  the  human  race  was  most  calamitous  and  afflicted, 
he  would,  without  hesitation,  name  that  which  elapsed  from 
the  death  of  Theodosius  the  Great,  (A.D.  395,)  to  the  reigrj 
of  Alboinus  in  Loinbardy."  .(A.D.  571.)  At  the  fast  men- 
tioned epoch,  the  barbarian  inundations  spent  themselves,  and, 
consequently,  repose  was  given  to  the  world. 

Slavery  was  very  common  at  the  siege  of  Troy  ;  but,  in 
consequence  of  the  very  rude  state  of  agriculture  prevalent  in 
those  days,  and  the  great  reliance  placed  on  the  spontaneous 
productions  of  the  earth,  the  same  number  of  slaves  was  not 
requindasin  subsequent  ages,  when  agirculture  had  made 
greater  advances.  Hence  we  find  the  laws  of  war  of  a  very 
cruel  character,  the  principle  of  revenge  triumphing  over 
every  other.  These  are  the  evils,  we -are  informed  by  Homer, 
that  follow  the  capture  of  a  town  :  "The  men  are  kilkd,  the 
city  is  burned  to  the  ground,  the  women  and  children  of  all 
ranks  are  carried  oft'  for  slaves."  (Iliad,  L.  9.)  Again : 
'•  Wretch  that  1  am,"  says  the  venerable  Priam,  "  wl.at  evil 
does  the  great  Jupiter  bring  on  me  in  my  old  age  ?  J\Iy  sons 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  .    303 

slain,  my  daughters  dragged  into  slavery,  violence  pervading 
even  the  chambers  of  my  palace,  and  the  very  infants  dashed 
against  the  grttund,  in  horrid  sport  of  war.  I  myself,  slain 
in  the  vain  office  of  defence,  shall  be  the  prey  of  my  own 
dogs,  perhaps,  in  the  very  palace  gates!"  (Iliad,  L.  22.) 

In  after  times,  during  the  glorious  days  of  the  republics  of 
both  Greece  and  Rome,  the  wants  of  man  had  undergone  an 
enlargement;  agriculture  had  been  pushed  to  a  high  state  of 
improvement,  population  became  more  dene,  and  conse- 
quently a  more  abundant  production,  and  more  regular  and 
constant  application  of  labor,  became  necessary.  At  this 
period,  slaves  were  in  great  demand,  and,  therefore,  the  pri- 
soners of  war  were  generally  spared,  in  order  that  they  might 
be  made  slaves.  And  this  mildness  did  not  arise  so  much 
from  their  civilization,  as  from  the  great  demand  for  slaves. 
All  the  Roman  generals,  even  the  mild  Julius,  were  sufficiently 
cruel  to  put  to  death,  when  they  did  not  choose  to  make 
slaves  of  the  captives.  Hence,  as  cruel  as  were  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  in  war,  they  were  much  milder  than  the  sur- 
rounding barbarous  nations.  In  like  manner,  the  wars  in 
Africa  have  been  made,  perhaps,  more  mild  by  the  dave  trade 
than  they  would  otherwise  have  been.  Instances  are  frequent, 
where  the  prisoner  has  been  immediately  put  to  death,  be- 
<Siuse  a  purchaser  could  not  be  found.  The  report  of  the 
Lords,  in  1789,  speaks  of  a  female  captive  in  Africa,  for 
whom  an  anker  of  brandy  had  been  offered  ;  but  before  the 
messenger  arrived,  her  head  had  been  cut  off.  Sir  George 
Young  saved  the  life  of  a  beautiful  boy,  about  five  years  old 
at  Sierra  Leone.  The  child  was  about  to,  be  thrown  into  the 
river  by  the  person  who  had  him  to  sell,  because  he  was  too 
young  to  be  an  object  of  trade;  but  Sir  George  offered  a 
quarter  cask  of  Madeira  for  him,  which  was  accepted.*  A 

*  See  Edward's  West  Indies,  vol.  2,  book  4,  chap.  4. 


304  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

multitude  of  such  instances  might  easily  be  cited,  from  co'm- 
manders  of  vessels  and  travellers,  who  have  ever  visited 
Africa.  And  thus  do  we  find,  by  a  review  of  the  history  of 
the  world,  that  slavery  alone,  which  addresses  itself  to  the 
principle  of  self-interest,  is  capable  of  overcoming  that  inor- 
dinate desire  of  vengeance  which  glows  in  the  breast  of  the 
savage;  and,  therefore,  we  find  the  remark  made  by  Voltaire, 
in  his  Phi.  Die.,  that  "slavery  is  as  ancient  as  war,  and  war 
as  human  nature,"  is  not  strictly  correct:  for  many  wars  have 
been  too  cruel  to  admit  of  slavery. 

Let  us  now  close  this  head,  by  an  inquiry  into  the  justice 
of  slavery,  flowing  from  the  laws  of  war.  And  bereave  may 
observe,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  whole  of^the  ancient  world, 
and  all  nations  of  modern  times  verging  on  a  state  of  bar- 
barism, never  for  a  moment  doubted  this  right.  All  history 
proves  that  they  looked  upon  slavery  as  a  mild  punish- 
ment, in  comparison  with  what  they  had  a  right  to  in- 
flict. And,  so  far  from  being  conscience-stricken,  when  they 
inflicted  the  punishment  of  death  or  slavery,  they  seemed  to 
glory  in  the  severity  of  the  puuishment,  and  to  be  remorseful 
only  when,  from  some  cause,  they  had  not  inflicted  the  worst. 
"  Why  so  tender-hearted,"  says  Agamemnon  to  Menelaus, 
seeing  him  hesitate,  while  a  Trojan  of  high  rank,  who  had 
the  misfortune  to  be  disabled,  by  being  thrown  from  his  cha- 
riot, was  begging  for  life,  "are  you  and  your  horse  so  be- 
holden to  the  Trojans  ?  Let  not  one  of  them  escape  destruc- 
tion from  our  hands — no,  not  the  child  within  his  mother's 
womb.  Let  all  perish  unmourned.*1  And  the  poet  even 
gives  his  sanction  to  this  inhumanity  of  Agamemnon,  who 
was  never  characterized  as  inhuman  :  "  It  was  justly  spoken, 
(says  Homer,)  and  he  turned  his  brother's  mind."  And  the 
suppliant  was  murdered  by  the  hand  of  the  king  of  men. 
"  When  the  unfortunate  monarch  of  Troy  came  to  beg  the 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  305 

body  of  his  heroic  son,  (Hector,)  we  find  the  conduct  of 
Achilles  marked  by  a  superior  spirit  of  generosity.  Yet,  in 
the  very  act  of  granting  the  pious  request,  he  doubts  if  he  is 
quite  excusable  to  the  soul  of  his  departed  friend,  for  remit- 
ting the  extremity  of  vengeance  which  he  had  meditated,  and 
restoring  the  corse  to  secure  the  rites  of  burial."*  To  ask 
them,  whether  men,  with  notions  similar  to  these,  had  a  right 
to  kill  or  enslave  the  prisoners,  would  almost  be  like  gravely 
inquiring  into  the  right  of  tigers  and  lions  to  kill  each  other, 
and  devour  the  weaker  beasts  of  the  forest.  If  we  look  to 
the  republics  of  Greece  and  Rome,  in  the  days  of  their  glory 
and  civilization,  we  shall  find  no  o'ne  doubting  the  right  to 
make  slaves  of  those  taken  in  war.  "No  legislator  of  anti- 
quity," says  Voltaire,  "ever  attempted  to  abrogate  slavery  ; 
on  the  contrary,  the  people  the  most  enthusiastic  for  liberty — 
the  Athenians,  the  Lacedemonians,  the  Romans,  and  the  Car- 
thagenians — were  those  who  enacted  the  most  severe. laws 
against  their  serfs.  Society  was  so  accustomed  to  this  degra- 
dation of  the  species,  that  Epictetus,  -who  was  assuredly  worth 
more  than  his ,  master,  never  expresses  any  surprise  at  his 
being  a  slave."f  Julius  Caesar  has  been  reckoned  one  of  the 
mildest  and  most  dement  military  chieftains  of  antiquity,  and 
yet  tlrere  is  very  little  doubt,  that  the  principal  object  in  the 
invasion  of  Britain,  was  to  procure  slaves  for  the  Roman  slave 
markets.  When  he  left  Britain,  it  became  necessary  to  col- 
lect together  a  large  fleet,  for  the  purpose  of  transporting  his 
captives  across  the  channel.  He  sometimes  ordered  the  cap- 
tive chiefs  to  be  executed,  and  he  butchered  the  whole  of 
Cafe's  Senate,  when  he  became  master  of  Utica.  Paulus 
Eiuilius,  acting  under  the  special  orders  of  the  Roman  Senate, 


*  See  Mitforcl's  Greece,  vol.  1,  chap.  2,  sec.  4. 
t  See  Philosophical  Dictionaiy,  title  "  Slaves." 
26* 


306  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

laid  all  Epirus  waste,  and  brought  150,000  captives  in  chains 
to  Italy,  all  of  whom  were  sold  in  the  Roman  slave  markets. 
Augustus  Caesar  was  considered  one  of  the  mildest,  most 
pacific,  and  most  politic  of  the  Roman  Emperors  ;  yet,  when 
he  rooted  out  the  nation  of  the  Salassii,  who  dwelt  upon  the 
Alps,  he  sold  36,000  persons  into  slavery.  Cato  was  a  large 
owner  of  slaves,  most  of  whom  he  had  purchased  in  the  slave 
markets  at  the  sale  of  prisoners  of  war.*  Aristotle,  the  great- 
est philosopher  of  antiq-iiity,  and  a  man  of  as  capacious  mind 
as  the  world  ever  produced,  was  a  warm  advocate  of  slavery — 
maintaining  that  it  was  reasonable,  necessary,  and  natural ; 
and,  accordingly,  in  his  model  of  a  republic,  there  were  to  be 
comparatively  few  freemen  served  by  many  slaves.f 

If  we  turn  from  profane  history  to  Holy  Writ — that  sacred 
fountain  whence  are  derived  those  pure  precepts,  and  holy 
laws  and  regulations  by  which  the  Christian  world  has  ever 
been  governed — we  shall  find  that  the  children  of  Israel,  under 
the  guidance  of  Jehovah,  massacred  or  enslaved  their  prison- 
ers of  war.  So  far  from  considering  slavery  a  curse,  they 
considered  it  a  punishment  much  too  mild,  and  regretted, 
from  this  cause  alone,  its  infliction. 

The  children  of  Israel,  when  they  marched  upon  the  tribes 
of  Canaan,  were  in  a  situation  very  similar  to  the  northern 
invaders  who  overran  the  Roman  Empire.  They  had  their 
wives  and  children  along  with  them,  and  wished  to  make 
Canaan  their  abode.  Extermination,  therefore,  became  neces- 
sary ;  and  accordingly,  we  find  that  the  Gibeonites  alone,  who 
practised  upon  the  princes  of  Israel  by  a  fraud,  escaped  the 
dreadful  scene  of  carnage.  They  were  enshmd,  and  sd  far 
from  regretting  their  lot,  they  seem  to  have  delighted  in  it ; 
and  the  children  of  Israel,  instead  of  mourning  over  the  des- 

*  See  Plutarch's  Lives,  Cato  the  Elder, 
f  Aristotle's  Politics,  book  1,  chap.  4. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  307 

tiny  of  the  enslaved  Gibeonites,  murmured  that  they  were 
not  massacred — "  and  all  the  congregation  murmured  against 
the  princes."  And  the  answer  of  the  princes  wae,  "  we  will 
even  let  them  live,  lest  wrath  be  upon  us,  because  of  the  oath 
which  we  swear  unto  them.1'-  "  But  let  them  be  hewers  of 
wood  and  drawers  of  water  unto  all  the  congregation,  as  the 
princes  had  promised  them."* 

But  it  is  needless  to  multiply  instances  farther  to  illustrate 
the  ideas  of  the  ancient  world  in  regard  to  their  rights  to  kill 

o  o 

or  enslave  at  pleasure  the  unfortunate  captive.  Nor  will  we 
now  cite  the  example  of  Africa,  the  great  storehouse  of  slavery 
for  the  modern  world,  which  so  completely  sustains  our  posi- 
tion in  regard  to  the  opinions  of  men  on  this  subject,  farther 
than  to  make  an  extract  from  a  speech  delivered  in  the  Bri- 
tish House  of  Commons,  by  Mr.  Henniker,  in  1789,  in  which 
the  speaker  asserts  that  a  letter  had  been  received  by  George 
III.,  from  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  African  potentates, 
the  Emperor  of  Dahomey,  which  letter  admirably  exemplifies 
an  African's  notions  about  the  right  to  kill  or  enslave  prison- 
ers of  war.  "  He  (Emperor  of  Dahomey)  slated,"  said  Mr. 
H.,  "  that  as  he  understood  King  George  was  the  greatest  of 
white  kings,  so  he  thought  himself  the  greatest  of  black  ones. 
He  asserted  that  he  could  It-ad  500,000  men  armed  into  the 
field,  that  being  the  pursuit  to  which  all  his  subjects  were 
bred,  and  the  women  only  staying  at  home  to  plant  and 
manure  the  earth.  He  had  himself  fought  two  hundred 
and  nine  battles,  with  great  reputation  and  success,  and  had 
conquered  the  great  king  of  Ardah.  The  king's  head  was  to 
this  day  preserved  with  the  flesh  and  hair;  the  heads  of  his 
gen&rals  were  distinguished  by  being  placed  on  each  side  of 
the  doors  of  their  Fetiches ;  with  the  heads  of  the  inferior 
officers  they  paved  the  space  before  the  doors ;  and  the  heads 
*  See  9th  chapter  of  Joshua. 


308  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERT. 

of  the  common  soldiers  formed  a  sort  of  fringe  or  outwork 
round  the  walls  of  the  palace.  Since  this  war,  he  had  expe- 
rienced the  greatest  good  fortune,  and  he  hoped  in  good 
time  to  be  able  to  complete  the  out  walls  of  all  his  great 
houses,  to  the  number  of  seven,  in  the  same  manner.''* 

Mr.  Norris,  who  visited  this  empire  in  1772,  actually  testi- 
fies to  the  truth  of  this  letter.  He  found  the  palace  of  the 
Emperor  an  immense  assemblage  of  cane  and  mud  tents, 
enclosed  by  a  high  wall.  The  skulls  and  jaw  bones  of  ene- 
mies slain  in  battle,  formed  the  favorite  ornaments  of  the 
palaces  and  temples.  The  king'-s  apartments  were  paved,  and 
the  walls  and  roof  stuck  over  with  these  horrid  trophies. 
And  if  a  farther  supply  appeared  at  any  time  desirable,  he 
announced  to  his  general,  that  "  his  house  wanted  thatch," 
•when  a  war  for  that  purpose  was  immediately  iindortaken.f 
Who  can  for  a  moment  bevso  absurd  as  to  imagine  that  such 
a  prince  as  this  could  doubt  of  his  right  to  make  slaves  in 
war,  when  he  gloried  in  being  able  to  thatch  his  houses  with 
the  heads  of  his  enemies  ?  Who  could  doubt  that  any  thing 
else  than  a  strong  sense  of  interest,  would  ever  put  an  end  to 
such  barbarity  and  ferocity  ?  Our  limits  will  not  allow  us  to 
be  more  minute,  however  interesting  the  subject. 

And,  therefore,  we  will  now  examine  into  the  right,  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  nations — the  strict  jus  gentium — and  we 
shall  find  all  the  writers  agree  in  the  justice  of  slavery,  under 
certain  circumstances.  Grotius  says  that,  as  the  law  of  na- 
ture permits  prisoners  of  war  to  be  killed,  so  the  same  law 
has  introduced  the  right  of  making'  them  slaves,  that  the 
captors,  in  view  to  the  benefit  arising  from  the  labor  or  sale 
of  their  prisoners,  might  be  induced  to  spare  theni.J  From 

*  See  Hazlitz's  British  Eloquence,  vol.  2. 

f  See  Family  Library,  No.  16,  p.  199. 

\  L  3,  chap.  7,  sec.  5.     4  Book  6,  chap.  3. 


PRSFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  309 

the  general  practice  of  nations  before  the  time  of  Puffendorf, 
he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  slavery  has  been  established 
"  by  the  free  consent  of  the  opposing  parties."* 

Rutherforth,  in  his  Institutes,  says,  "  since  all  the  members 
•f  a  nation,  against  which  a  just  war  is  made,  are  bound  to 
repair  the  damages  that  gave  occasion  to  the  war,  or  that  , 
are  done  in  it,  and  likewise  to  make  satisfaction  for  the  ex- 
penses of  carrying  it  on  ;  tire  law  of  nations  will  allow  those 
•who  are  prisoners  to  be  made  slaves  by  the  nation  which  takes 
them  ;  that  so  their  labor,  or  the  price  for  which  they  are 
sold,  may  discharge  these  demands."  But  he  most  powerful- 
ly combats  the  more  cruel  doctrine  laid  down  by  Grotius,  that 
the  master  has  a  right  to  take  away  the  life  of  his  slave. 
Bynkershoek  contends  for  the  higher  right  of  putting  prison- 
el's  of  war  to  death  :  "  We  may,  however,  (enslave,)  if  we 
please,"  he  adds,  "  and  indeed  we  do  sometimes  still  exercise 
that  right  upon  those  who  enforce  it  against  us.  Therefore 
the  Dutch  are  in  the  habit  of  selling  to  the  Spaniards  as 
slaves,  the  Algerines,  Tunisians,  and  Tripolitans,  whom  they 
take  prisoners  in  the  Atlantic  or  Medilerranean.  Nay,  in  the 
year  1661,  the  States  General  gave  orders  to  their  admiral  to 
sell  as  slaves  all  the  pirates  that  he  should  take.  The  same 
thing  was  done  in  1664."f  Vattel,  the  most  humane  of  all 
the  standard  authors  on  national  law,  asks — "  are  prisoners  of 
war  to  be  made  slaves  ?"  To  which  he  answers,  "  Yes ;  in 
cases  which  give  a  right  to  kill  them,  when  they  have  ren- 
dered themselves  personally  guilty  of  some  crime  deserving 
death."J  Even  Locke,  who  has  so  ably  explored  all  the  facul- 
ties of  the  mind,  and  who  so  nobly  stood  forth  against  the 
monstrous  and  absurd  doctrines  of  Sir  Robert  Filmer,  and  the 

*  Book,  chap.  9,  sec.  17. 

t  Treatise  on  the  Law  of  "War,  Du  Ponceau's  Ed.  p.  21. 

J  See  Law  of  Nations,  book  3,  chap.  8,  sec.  152. 


310  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

passive  submissionists  of  his  clay,  admits  the  right  to  mate 
slaves  of  prisoners  whom  we  might  justly  have  killed.  Speak- 
ing of  a  prisoner  who  has  forfeited  his  life,  he  says,  '•  he  to 
whom  he  has  forfeited  it  may,  when  he  has  him  in  his  power, 
djlay  to-  take  it,  and  make  use  of  him  to  his  own  service,  and 
he  does  him  no  injury  b}  it."*  Blackstone,  it  would  seem, 
denies  the  right  to  make  prisoners  of  war  slaves ;  for  he  says 
we  had  no  right  to  enslave,  unless  we  had  the  right  to  kill, 
and  we  had  no  right  to  kill,  unless  "  in  cases  of  absolute  ne- 
cessity, for  self-defence;  and  it  is  plain  this  ab;olute  necessity 
did  not  subsist,  since  the  victor  did  not  actually  kill  him,  but 
made  him  prisoner."!1  Upon  this  we  have  to  remark,  1st, 
that  Judge  Blackstone  here  speaks  of  slavery  in  its  pure,  un- 
mitigated form,  "whereby  an  unlimited  power  is  given  to  the 
master  over  the  life  and  fortune  of  the  slave. "J  Slavery 
scarcely  exists  any  where  in  this  form,  and  if  it  did,  it  would 
be  a  continuance  of  a  state  of  war,  as  Rousseau  justly  ob- 
serves, b 'tween  the  captive  and  the  captor.  Again  :  Black- 
stone,  in  his  argument  upon  this  subject,  seems  to  misunder- 
stand the  grounds  upoti  which  civilians  place  the  justification 
of  slavery,  as  arising  from  the  laws  of  war.  It  is  well  known 
that  mast  of  the  horrors  of  war  spring  from  the  principle  of 
retaliation,  and  not,  as  Blackstone  supposes,  universally  from 
"absolute  necessity."  If  two  civilized  nations  of  modern 
times  are  at  war,  and  one  hangs  up,  without  any  justifiable 
cause,  all  of -the  enemy  who  fall  into  its  possession,  the  other 
do^s  not"  hesitate  to  inflict  the  same  punishment  upon  an  equal 
number  of  its  prisoners.  It  is  the  u  lex  talionis"  and  not  the 
absolute  necessity,  which  gives  rise  to  this. 

The  colonists  of  this  country   up  to  the.  revolution,  during, 

*  On  Civil  Government,  chap.  6. 

f  See  Tucker's  Blackstone,  vol    2,  p.  423. 

\  Blackstone's  Commentaries,  in  loco  citato. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  311 

and  even  since  that  epoch,  have  put  to  death  the  Indian  cap- 
tives, whenever  the  Indians  had  been  in  the  habit  of  massacre- 
ing  indiscriminately.  It  was  not  so  much  absolute  necessity 
as  the  law  of  retaliation,  which  justified  this  practice;  and,  the 
ci\ilians  urge  that  the  greater  right  includes  the  lesser;  and, 
consequently,  the  right  to  kill  involves  the  more  humane  and 
more  useful  right  'of  enslaving.  In  point  of  fjict,  it  would 
seem  that  the  Indians  were  often  enslaved  by  the  colonists.* 
Although  we  find  no  distinct  mention  made,  by  any  of  the 
histoiians,  of  the  particular  manner  in  which  this  slavery 
arose,  yet  it  is  not  difficult  to  infvr  that  it  must  have  arisen 
from  the  laws  of  war,  being  a  commutation  of  the  punish- 
ment of  death  for  slavery.  Again  :  If  the  nation  with  which 
you  are  at  waf  makes  slaves  of  all  your  citizens  falling  into  its 
possession,  surely  you  have  the  right  to  retaliate  and  do  so 
likewise.  It  is  the  "  lex  taliunis"  and  not  absolute  necessity, 
which  justifies  you;  and,  if  you  should  choose  from  policy  to 
waive  your  light,  your  ability  to  do  so  would  not,  surely, 
prove  that  you  had  no  right  at  all  to  enslave.  Such  a  doc- 
trine as  this  would  prove  that  the  rights  of  belligerents  were 
in  the  inverse  ratio  of  their  strength — a  doctrine  which,  push- 
ed to  the  extreme,  would  always  reduce  the  hostile  parties  to 
a  precise  equality — which  is  a  perfect  absurdity.  If  we  were 
to  suppose  a  civilized  nation  in  the  heart  of  Africa,  sur- 
rounded by  such  princes  as  the  King  of  Dahomey,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  such  a  nation  would  be  justifiable  in  killing  or 
enslaving  at  its  option,  in  time  of  war,  and  if  it  did  neither, 
it  would  relinquish  a  perfect  iigkt.\  We  have  now  consi- 

*  See  Tucker's  Blackstone,  vol    2,  Appendix,  note  H.. 

t  We  shall  hereafter  see  that  our  colony  at  Liheiia  may,  at  some 
future  day,  be  placed  in  an  exirernely  embarrassing  conditicn  from 
this  very  cause.  It  m<ty  not  in  future  wars  have  stiength  sufficient 
to  forego  the  exercise  of. the  right  of  killing  or  enslaving,  and  it  it 


312  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

dered  the  most  fruitful  source  of  slavery — laws  of  war — and 
shall  proceed  more  briefly  to  the  consideration  of  the  other 
three  which  we  have  mentioned,  taking  up — 

2.  State  of  Property  and  fetbleness  of  Government. — In 
tracing  the  manneis  and  customs  of  a  people  who  have 
emerged  from  a  state  of  barbarism,  and  examining  into  the 
nature  and  character  of  their  institutions,  we  find  it  of  the 
first  importance  to  look  to  the  condition  of  property,  in  order 
that  we  may  conduct  our  inquiries  with  judgment  and  know- 
ledge. The  character  of  the  government,  in  spite  of  all  its 
forms,  depends  more  on  the  condition  of  property,  than  on 
any  one  circumstance  beside.  The  relations  which  the  diffe- 
rent classes  of  society  bear  towards  each  other,  the  distinction 
into  high  and  low,  noble  and  plebeian,  in  fact,  depend  almost 
exclusively  upon  the  state  of  property.  It  may  be  with 
truth  affirmed,  that  the  exclusive  owners  of  the  property  ever 
have  been,  ever  will,  and  perhaps  ever  ought  to  be,  the  vir- 
tual rulers  of  mankind.  If,  then,  in  any  age  or  nation,  there 
shoulfj  be  but  one  species  of  property,  and  that  should  be 
exclusively  owned  by  a  portion  of  citizens,  that  portion  would 
become  inevitably  the  masters  of  the  residue.  And  if  the 
government  should  be  so  feeble  as  to  leave  each  one,  in  a 
great  measure,  to  protect  himself,  this  circumstance  would 
have  a  tendency  to  throw  the  property  into  the  hands  of  a 
few,  who  would  rule  with  despotic  sway  over  the  many.  And 
this  was  the  condition  of  Europe  during  the  middle  ages, 
under  what  was  termed  \hvfeudal  system.  There  was,  in 
fact,  but  one  kind  of  property,  and  that  consisted  of  land- 
Nearly  all  the  useful  arts  had  perished — commerce  and  manu- 
factures could  scarcely  be  said  to  exist  at  all,  and  a  daik  night 

have  the  strength,  it  may  not  have  the  mildness  and  humanity.  .Re- 
venge is  sweet,  and  the  murder  of  a  brother  or  father,  and  the  slavery 
of  a  mother  or  sister,  will  uot  easily  be  forgotten. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  313 

of  universal  ignorance  enshrouded  the  human  mind.  The 
landholders  of  Europe,  the  feudal  aristocrats,  possessing  all 
the  property,  necessarily  and  inevitably  as  fate  itself,  usurped 
all  the  power  ;  and  in  consequence  of  the  feebleness  of  gov- 
ernment, and  the  resulting  necessity  that  each  one  should  do 
justice  for  himself,  the  laws  of  primogeniture  and  entails'were 
resorted  to  as  a  device  to  prevent  the  weakening  of  families 
by  too  great  a  subdivision  or  alienation  of  property,  and  from 
the  same  cause,  small  allodial  proprietors  were  obliged  to 
give  up  their  small  estates  to  some  powerful  baron  or  large 
landholder,  in  consideration  of  protection,  which  he  would  bo 
unable  to  procure  in  any  other  manner.*  Moreover,  the 
great  landholders  of  those  days  had  only  one  way  of  spend- 
ing their  estates,  even  when  they  were  not  barred  by  entails, 
and  that  was  by  employing  a  large  number  of  retainers — for 
they  could  not  then  spend  their  estates  as  spendthrifts  gene- 
rally squander  them,  in  luxuries  and  manufactures,  in  conse- 
que'nce  of  the  rude  state  of  the  arts — a'l  the  necessities  of 
man  being  supplied  directly  from  the  farms  ;f  and  the  great 
author  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations  has  most  philosophically 
remarked,  that  few  great  estates  have  been  spent  from  bene- 
volence alone.  And  the  people  of  those  days  could  find  no 
employment  except  on  the  land,  and,  consequently,  were 
entirely  dependant  on  the  landlords,  subject  to  their  caprices 
trad  whims,  paid  according  to  their  pleasure,  and  entirely 

*  Upon  this  subject,  see  Robertson's  1st  vol.  Hist.  Charles  V.,  Hal. 
lam's  Middle  Ages,  Gilbert  Stuart  on  the  Progress  of  Society,  and  all 
the  writers  on  feudal  tenures. 

t "  There  is  not  a  vestige  to  be  discovered,  for  several  centuries,  of 
any  considerable  manufactures Rich  men  kept  domestic  arti- 
sans among  their  servants;  even  kings,  in  the  ninth  century,  had  their 
clothes  made  by  the  women  upon  their  farms." — -Hallam's  Middle 
Ages,  vol.  2,  pp.  260,  261, 1'hilad.  edition. 
27 


314  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

under  their  control ;  in  fine,  they  were  slaves  complete.  Even 
the  miserable  cities  of  the  feudal  times  were  not  independent, 
but  were  universally  subjected  to  the  barons  or  great  land- 
holders, whose  powerful  protection  against  the  lawless  rapine 
of  the  times,  could  only  be  purchased  by  an  entire  surrender 
of  liberty.* 

Thus  the  property  of  the  feudal  ages  was  almost  exclusive- 
ly of  one  kind.  The  feebleness  of  government,  together  with 
the  laws  of  primogeniture  and  entails,  threw  that  property  in- 
to the  hands  of  a  few,  and  the  difficulty  of  alienation,  caused 
by  the  absence  of  all  other  species  of  property,  had  a  ten- 
dency to  prevent  that  change  of  possession  which  we  so  con- 
stantly witness  in  modern  times.  Never  was  there,  then, 
perhaps,  so  confirmed  and  so  permanent  an  aristocracy  as 
that  of  the  feudal  ages  ;  it  naturally  sprang  from  the  condi- 
tion of  property  and  the  obstacles  to  its  alienation.  The  aris- 
tocracy alone  embraced  in  those  days  the  freemen  of  Europe  ; 
all  the  rest  were  slaves,  call  them  by  what  name  you  please, 
and  doomed  by  the  unchanging  laws  of  nature,  to  remain  so, 
till  commerce  and  manufactures  had  arisen,  and  with  them 
had  sprung  into  existence  a  new  class  of  capitalists,  the  tiers 
etat  of  Europe,  whose  existence  first  called  for  new  forms  of 
government,  and  whose  exertions  either  have  or  will  revolu- 
tionize the  w.hole  of  Europe.  A  revolution  in  the  state  of 
property  is  always  a  premonitory  symptom  of  a  revolution  in 
government  and  in  the  state  of  society,  and  without  the  one 
you  cannot  meet  with  permanent  success  in  the  other.  The 
slave  of  southern  Europe  could  never  have  been  emancipated , 
except  through  the  agency  of  commerce  and  manufactures, 
and  the  consequent  rapid  rise  of  cities,  accompanied  with  a 
more  regular  and  better  protected  industry,  producing  a  vast 
augmentation  in  the  products  which  administer  to  our  ueces- 

*  Upon  this  subject,  see  both  HaUaai  and  Robertson. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  315 

sities  and  comforts,  and  increasing,  in  a  proportionate  degree, 
the  sphere  of  our  wants  anddesires.  In  the  same  way  we  shall 
show,  before  bringing  this  article  to  a  close,  that  if  the  slaves 
of  our  southern  country  shall  ever  be  liberated,  and  sufti  red 
to  remain  among  us,  with  their  present  limited  wants  and 
longing  desire  for  a  state  of  idleness,  they  will  fall,  inevitable, 
by  the  nature  of  things,  into  a  state  of  slavery,  from  which 
no  government  could  rescue  them, 'unless  by  a  radical  change 
of  all  their  habits,  and  a  most  awful  and  fearful  change  in  the 
whole  system  of  property  throughout  the  country.  The  state 
of  property,  then,  may  fairly  be  considered  a  very  fruitful 
source  of  slavery.  It  was  the  most  fruitful  source  during  the 
feudal  ages — it  is  the  foundation  of  slavery  throughout  the 
north-eastern  regions  of  Europe  and  the  populous  countries  of 
the  continent  of  Asia.  We  are  even  disposed  to  think,  con- 
trary to  the  general ,  opinion,  that  the  condition  of  property 
operated  prior  to  the  customs  of  war  in  the  production  of 
slavery.  We  are  fortified  in  this  opinion,  by  the  example  of 
Mexico  and  Peru  in  South  America.  In  both  of  those  empires, 
certainly  the  farthest  advanced  and  most  populous  of  thonew 
world,  "  private  properly,"  says  Dr.  Robertson,  "  was  perfectly 
understood,  and  established  in  its  full  extent."  The  most 
abject  slavery  existed  in  both,  these  countries;  and  what  still 
farther  sustains  our  position,  it  very  nearly,  "especially  in 
Mexico,  resembled  that  of  the  feudal  ages.  ''The  great  body 
of  the  people  was  in  a  most  humiliating  state.  A  considera- 
ble nnmber,  known  by  the  name  of  SfayequCs,  nearly  resem- 
bling the  condition  of  those  peasants  who,  under  various 
denominations,  were  considered,  during  the  prevalence  of  the 
feudal  system,  as  instruments  of  labor  attached  to  the  soil. 
Others  were  reduced  to  the  lowest  form  of  subjection,  that  of 
domestic  servitude,-  and  felt  the. utmost  rigor  .of  that  wretched 
state."*  * 

*  Robertson's  America,  pp.  105,  107. 


316  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

Jf 

Now,  slavery  in  both  these  countries,  must  have  arisen 
from  the  state  of  property,  for  the  laws  of  war  are  entirely 
too  crtiel  to  admit  of  captives  among  the  Mexicans.  "  They 
fought,"  says  Dr.  Robertson,  "  to  gratify  their  vengeance,  by 
shedding  the  blood  of  their  enemies — no  captive  was  ever 
ransomed  or  spared."*  And  the  Peruvians,  though  much 
milder  in  war,  seem  not  to  have-  made  slaves  of  their  captives, 
though  we  must  confess*  that  there  is  great  difficulty  in  "ex- 
plaining their  great  comparative  clemency  to  prisoners  in  war, 
unless  by  supposing  they  were  made  slaves.f  We  have  no 
•dxmbt,  likewise,  if  we  could  obtain  sufficient  insight  into  the 
past  history  and  condition  of  Africa,  that  slavery  would  be 
found  to  have  arisen  in  many  of  those  countries,  rather  from 
the  state  of  property  than  the  laws  of  war ;  for.  even  to  this 
day,  many  of  the  African  princes  are  too  cruel  and  sanguinary 
in  war  to  forego  the  barbarous  pleasure  of  murdering  the 
captives,  and  yet  slavery  exists  in  their  dominions  to  its  full 
extent. 

We  will  not  here  pause  to  examine  into  the  justice  or  in- 
justice of  that  species  of  slavery,  which  is  sure  to  arise  from 
a  faulty  distribution  of  property,  because  it  is  the  inevitable 
result  of^  the  great  law  of  necessity,  which  itself  has  no  law, 
and,  consequently,  about  which  it  is  utterly  useless  to  argue. 
We  will,  therefore,  proceed  at  once  to  the  third  cause  assigned 
for  slavery — bargain  and  sale. 

3.  Cause  of  Slavery,  Bargain  and  Sale. — This  source  of 
slavery  might  easily  be  reduced  to  that  which  depends  on  the 

*  Robertson's  America,  vol.  2,  p.  114. 

•)•  We  are  sorry  we  have  not  the  means  of  satisfactorily  investiga- 
ting this  subject.  If  slavery  was  established  among  them  from  the 
laws-of  war,  it  would  be  one  of  the  most  triumphant  examples  which 
history  affords  of  the  effect  of  slavery,  in  mitigating  the  cruelties  of 
•war ;  for  it  is  a  singular  fact,  that  the  Peruvians  were  the  only  people 
in  the  new  world  who  did  not  murder  their  prisoners. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

state  of  property,  but  for  the  sake  of  perspicuity,  we  prefer 
keeping  them  apart.  Adam  Smith  has  well  observed,  that 
there  is  a  strong  propensity  in  man  "  to  truck,  barter,  and 
exchange,  one  thing  for  another,"  and.  both  the  parties  gene- 
rally intend  to  derive  an  advantage  from  the  exchange.  This 
disposition  seems  to  extend  to  every  thing  susceptible  of  being 
impressed  with  the  character  of  property  or  exchangeable 
value,  or  from  which  any  great  or  signal  advantage  may  be 
derived — it  has  been  made  to  extend,  at  time*,  to  life  and 
liberty.  Generals,  in  time  of  war,  have  pledged  their  lives 
for  the  performance  of  their  contracts.  At  the  conclusion  of 
peace,  semi-barbarous  nations  have  been  in  the  habit  of  inter- 
changing hostages — generally  the  sons  of  princes  and  noble- 
men— for  the  mutual  observance  of  treaties,  whose  lives  were 
forfeited  by  a  violation  of  the  plighted  faith ;  and  in  all  ages, 
where  *he  practice  has  not  been  interdicted  by  law,  indivi- 
duals have  occasionally  sold  their  own  liberty,  or  that  of 
others  dependent  on  them.  We  have  already  seen  how  the 
small  allodial  possessors,  during  the  feudal  ages,  were  obliged 
to  surrender  their  lands  and  liberty  to  some  powerful  baron, 
for  that  protection  which  could  bo  procured  in  no  other  man- 
ner. Throughout  the  whole  ancient  world,  the  sale  of  one's 
own  liberty,  and  even  that  of  his  children,  was  common.  The 
non-payment  of- debts,  or  failure  to  comply  with  contracts, 
frequently  subjected  the  unfortunate  offender  to  slavery,  in 
both  Greece  and  Rome.  Instances  of  slavery  from  bargain 
and  sale,  occur  in  Scripture.  Joseph  was  sold  to  the  Ishmael- 
ites  for  twenty  pieces  of  silver,  and  carried  down  to  Egypt  in 
slavery.  But  this  was  a  black  and  most  unjustifiable  act  on 
the  part  of  his  envious  b'-others.  There  ai'e  other  parts  of 
Scripture,  where  the  practice  of  buying  and  selling  slaves 
seems  to  be  justified.  The  Hebrew  laws  permitted  the  sell- 
ing of  even  the  Jews  into  slavery  for  six  years.  "  If  thou 
27* 


318  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

• 

buy  a  Hebrew  servant,  six  years  lie  sball  serve,  and  in  the 
seventh  he  shall  go  out  free  for  nothing."  And  if  the  ser- 
vant chose,  at  the  expiration  of  six  years,  to  remain  with  his 
master  as  a  slave,  he  might  do  so  on  having  his  ear  bored 
through  with  an  awl.  It  seems  fathers  could  sell  their  chil- 
dren —thus  :  "  And  if  a  man  sell  his  daughter  to  be  a  maid 
servant,  she  shall  not  go  out  as  the  men  servants  do."*  An 
unlimited  right  to  purchase  slaves  from  among  foreigners 
seems  to  have  been  granted,  whether  they  had  been  slaves  or 
not  before  the  purchase  ;  thus,  in  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of 
Leviticus,  we  find  the  following  injunction  :  "  Both  thy  bond- 
men and  bondmaids  which  thou  shalt  have,  shall  be  of  the- 
heathen  that  are  round  about  you ;  of  them  shall  ye  buy 
bondmen  and  bondmaids.  Moreover,  of  the  children  of 
strangers  who  sojourn  among  you,  of  them  shall  ye  buy,  and 
of  the  families  that  are  with  you,  which  they  begat  in  your 
land ;  and  they  shall  be  your  possession.  And  ye  shall  take 
them  as  an  inheritance  for  your  children  after  you,  to  inherit 
them  for  a  possession  ;  they  shall  be  your  bondmen  for  ever  "\ 
We  may  well  suppose  that  few  persons  would  ever  be  induced 
to  sell  themselves  or  children  into  slavery,  unless  under  very 
severe  pressure  from  want.  Accordingly,  we  find  the  prac- 
tice most  prevalent  among  the  most  populous  and  the  most 
savage  nations,  where  the  people  are  most  frequently  subjected 
to  dearths  and  famines.  Thus,  in  Hinclostan  and  China, 
there  is  nothing  more  frequent  than  this  practice  of  selling 
liberty.  "  Every  year,"  said  a  Jesuit  who  resided  in  Hindos4 
tan,  "we  baptize  a  thousand  children  whom  their  parents  can. 
no  longer  feed,  or  who  being  likely  to  die,  are  sold  to  us  by 
their  mothers,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  them."  The  great  legis- 
lator of  Hindostan,  Menu,  in  his  ordinances,  which  are  de- 
scribed by  Sir  William  Jones,  justifies  this  practice  in  time  of 
*  See  21st  chapter  of  Exodus.  t  44,  45,  and  46  verses. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  319 

* 

scarcity.  "  Ajigarta,"  says  Menu,  in  one  of  his  ordinances, 
"  dying  with  hunger,  was  going  to  destroy  his  own  son  by 
selling  him  for  some  cattle  ;  yet  he  was  guilty  of  no  crime, 
for  he  only  sought  a  remedy  against  famishing."  41  In  China," 
says  Duhalde,  ".a  man  sometimes  sells  his  son,  and  even  him- 
self and  wife,  at  a  very  moderate  price.  The  common  mode 
is  to  mortgage  themselves  with  a  condition  of  redemption, 
and  a  great  number  of  men  and  maid  servants  are  thus  bound 
in  a  family."  There  is  vno  doubt  but  at  this  moment,  in 
every  densely  populated  country,  hundreds  would  be  willing 
to  sell  themselves  into  slavery  if  the  laws  would  permit  them, 
whenever  they  were  pressed  by  famine.  Ireland  seems  to  be 
the  country  of  modern  Europe  most  subjected  to  these  dread- 
ful visitations.  Suppose,  then,  we  reverse  the  vision  of  the 
Kentucky  Senator,*  and  imagine  that  Ireland  could  be  severed 
during  those  periods  of  distress  from  the  Britannic  isle,  and 
could  float,  like  the  fabled  island  of  Delos,  across  the  ocean, 
,aud  be  placed  by  our  side,  and  our  laws  should  inhumanely 
forbid  a  single  son  of  Erin  from  entering  our  territory,  unless 
as  a  slave,  to  be  treated  exactly  like  the  African,  is  there  any 
man,  acquainted  with  the  state  of  the  Irish,  in  years  of  scar- 
city, who  would  doubt  for  .a  moment,  but  that  thousands, 
much  as  this  oppressed"  people  are  in  love  with  liberty,  would 
enter  upon  this  hard  condition,  if  they  could  find  purchasers. 
Indeed,  the  melancholy  fact  has  too  often  occurred  in  Ireland, 
of  individuals  committing  crimes  merely  for  the  purpose  of 
being  thrown  into  the  houses  of  correction,  where  they  could 
obtain  bread  and  water  ! 

Among  savages,  famines  are  much  more  dreadful  than 

among  civilized  nations,  where  they  are  provided  agamst  by 

previous  accumulation  and  commerce.    'Dr.  Robertson   has 

given  us   a  glowing,   and  no  doubt,  correct  picture,  of  the 

*  Mr.  Clay,  in  the  debate  on  his  resolutions  on  the  tariff,  1832. 


320  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

dreadful  ravages  of  famine  among  the  North  American  In- 
dians, and  on  such  occasions,  we  are  informed  by  the  ''  Lettres 
Edifiantes  et  Curieuse,"  that  the  ties  of  nature  are  no  longer 
binding.  A  father  will  sell  his  sou  for  a  knife  or  hatchet.* 
But,  unfortunately,  among  savages  in  the  hunting  state, 
scarcely  any  one  can  do  more  than  maintain  himself  and  one 
or  two  children,  and  therefore  cannot  afford  to  keep  a  slave. 

If  we  turn  to  Africa,  we  shall  find  this  cause  of  slavery 
frequently  operating  with  all  its  power ;  and,  accordingly, 
Parke  has  ranked  famine  as  the  second  among  the  four  causes 
•which  he  assigns  for  slavery  in  Africa.  "There  are  many 
instances  of  freemen,"  says  he~  "  voluntarily  surrendering  up 
their  liberty  to  save  their  lives.  During  a  great  scarcity, 
•which  lasted  for  three  years,  in  the  countries  of  the  Gambia, 
great  numbers  of  people  became  slaves  in  this  manner.  Dr. 
Laidley  assured  me,  that  at  that  time,  many  freemen  came 
and  begged  with  great  earnestness,  to  be  put  upon  his  slave 
chain,  to  save  them  from  perishing  with  hunger.  Large 
families  are  very  often  exposed  to  ab.-olute  want,  and  as  the 
parents  have  almost  Oulimited  authority  over  their  children,  it 
frequently  happens  in  all  parts  of  Africa,  that  some  of  the 
latter  are  sold  to  purchase  provisions  for  the  rest  of  the  family. 
When  I  was  at  Jarra,  Damon  Jumma  pointed  out  to  me 
three  young  slaves  which  he  had  purchased  in  this  manner."f 
Bruce,  in  his  travels  in  Africa,  saw  whole  villages  and  districts 
of  country  depopulated  by  the  famines  which  had  visited 
them,  and  gives  us  a  most  appalling  picture  of  the  walking 
skeletons  and  lawless  rapine  which  were  every  where  exhibited 
during  those  frightful  periods  of  distress.  We  cannot  wonder, 
then,  tinder  these  circumstances,  that  famine  should  be  a 

*  Tom.  8. 

f  Parke's  Travels  in  Africa,  chap.  22,  p.  216,  N.  Y-  ed. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  321 

f 

fruitful  source  of  slavery,  by  giving  rise  to  a  sale  of  liberty 
for  the  preservation  of  life. 

The  remark  of  Judge  Blackstone,  as  to  this  kind  of  slavery, 
is  known  to  every  one — that  every  sale  implies  a  "  quid  pro 
quo" — but  that,  in  the  case  of  slavery,  there  can  be  no  equi- 
valent, no  quid  pro  quo — for  nothing  is  an  equivalent  for 
liberty  ;  and  even  the  purchase  money,  or  the  price,  whatever 
it  mjght  be,  would  instantly  belong  to  the  master  of  the 
slave.*  Upon  this  we  would  remark,  that  Blackstone  seems 
to  have  his  attention  fixed  exclusively  on  those  countries 
where  every  man  can  easily-maintain  himself,  and  where,  con- 
sequently, his  life  jjan  never  be  in  jeopardy  from  want.  If 
there  is  any  country  in  the  world  to  which  this  argument  will 
apply,  that  country  is  ours.  We  believe  every  man  here  may 
obtain  a  subsistence,  either  by  his  own  exertions,  or  by  the 
aid  of  the  poor  rates.  But  Ihis  is  far  from  being  the  case 
with  semi-barbarous  or  densely  populated  countries.  Again : 
Blackstone  alludes  to  that  pure  state  of  slavery,  where  a 
man's  life,  liberty,  and  property,  are  at  the  mercy  of  his  mas- 
ter. That  is  far  from  being  the  condition  of  slavery  now. 
In  most  parts  of  the  world  the  slave  is  carefully  protected  in 
life,  .limb,  and  even  in  a  moderate  share  of  liberty,  by  the 
policy  of  the  laws  ;  and  his  nourishment  and  subsistence  are 
positively  enjoined.  Where  this  is  the  case,  we  can  imagine 
many  instances  in  which  liberty  might  have  an  equivalent, 
Who  for  a  moment  can  doubt  but  thtt  the  abundant  daily 
supplies  of  subsistence,  consisting  of  wholesome  meat,  bread, 
and  frequently  vegetables  and  refreshing  drinks  besides,  which 
are  furnished  to  our  slaves,  are  more  than  an  equivalent  for 
the  liberty  of  the  Chinese  laborer,  who  exhausts  himself  with 
hard  labor — feeds  on  his  scanty  and  unseasoned  rice — tastes 
no  wholesome  meat  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the 
*  Tucker's  Blackstone,  vol.  2,  p.  423. 


322  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

toilsome  year — sees  his  family  frequently  perishing  before  his 
eyes,  or  more  cruel  still,  consents  himself  to  be  the  exeeu- 
tioner,  in  order  that  he  may  release  them  from  the  intolerable 
torments  of  unsatisfied  wants,  and  who,  even  in  seasons  of 
ordinal y  supply,  fishes  up  with  eagerness  the  vilest  garbage 
from  the  river  or  canal,  and  voraciously  devours  meat  which* 
with  us,  would  be  left  to  be  fed  on  by  the  vultures  of  the  air. 
The  fact  is,  the  laborer  in  this  hard  condition  is  already  a 
slave,  or  rather  in  a  situation  infinitely  worse  than  slavery — 
he  is  subjected  to  all  the  hardships  and  degradation  of  the 
slave,  and  derives  none  of  the  advantages.  In  the  case  of 
famine,  the  equivalent  seems  to  be  life  for  liberty  ;  and  when 
this  is  th«  case,  although  the  philosopher  may  consider 
death  as  preferable  to  slavery,  "  yet,"  says  Parke,  "  the  poor 
negro,  when  fainting  with  hunger,  thinks,  like  Esau  of  old, 
'  behold  I  am  at  the  point  to  die,  and  what  profit  shall  this 
birthright  do  to  me  T  "  The  reason  why  persons  do  not  more 
frequently  sell  themselves  into  slavery  is,  because  they  are 
forbidden  by  the  laws,  or  can  find  no  purchasers'.  So  far 
from  persons  not  selling  their  liberty  because  there  is  no 
equivalent,  it  is  directly  th«  contrary  in  most  countries  ;  the 
price  or  equivalent,  consisting  of  continued  support,  protec- 
tion, <fec.,  is  too  great— more  than  can  be  afforded.  The  capi- 
talist in  Great  Britain  could  not  afford  to  purchase  the  opera- 
tive, and  treat  him  as  we  do  the  slave;  the  price  paid,  the 
quid  pro  quo  of  Blackstone,  would  be  more  than  the  liberty 
would  be  worth.  We  have  no  doubt,  if  the  English  laws 
were  to  allow  of  slavery,  such  as  we  have  in  this  country, 
there  would  be  many  more  persons  wishing  to  sell  their 
liberty  than  of  those  wishing  to  buy!  But  whether  the  re- 
marks of  Judge  Blackstone  are  correct  in  theory  or  not,  is  a 
matter  of  no  practical  importance  ;  for,  in  point  of  fact,  as  we 
have  shown  by  undeniable  testimony,  bargain  and  sale  have 


PR0FESSOB  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.    f  323 

ever  been  a  most  fruitful  source  of  slavery  in  ancient  time?, 
and  among  many  people  of  the  present,  day ;  and,  conse- 
quently, we  could  not  pretermit  it  in  a  general  survey  of  the 
sources  of  slavery.  We  shall  now  proceed  to  a  consideration 
of  the  last  mentioned  source  of  slavery. 
•  4.  Crime. — All  governments,  even  those  of  the  states  of 
our  confederacy,  have  ever  been  consideivd  as  perfectly  justi- 
fiable in  enslaving  for  crime.  All  our  penitentiaries  are 
erected  upon  this  principle,  and  slavery  in  them,  of  the  most 
abject  and  degrading  character,  endures  for  a  certain  number 
of  months,  years,  or  for  life,  according  to  the  offence.  In 
South  America  and  Russia,  the  criminals  are  frequently  sen- 
tenced to  slavery  in  the  mines,  and  in  France  arid  England, 
to  the  gallies  and  work-houses  ;  but  as  it  is  principally  with 
domestic  slavery  that  we  are  concerned  in  this  article,  we 
shall  not  consider  farther  that  which  is  of  a  public  character. 
Throughout  the  ancient  world,  domestic  slavery,  arising 
from  crime,  seems  -to  have  been  very  common.  We  have 
already  spoken  of  the  slavery  which  was  inflicted  frequently 
on  insolvent  debtors  in  both  Greece  and  Rome.  In  Africa, 
too,  we  find  insolvency  a  very  frequent  source  of  slavery. 
"  Of. all  the  offences,"  says  Parke,  "  if  insolvency  may  be  so 
called,  to  which  the  laws  of  Africa  have  affixed  the  punish- 
ment of  slavery,  this  is  the  most  common.  A  negro  trader 
commonly  contracts  debts  on  some  mercantile  speculation, 
either  from  his  neighbors  to  purchase  such  articles  as  will  sell 
to  advantage  in  a  distant  market,  or  from  the  European 
traders  on  the  coast — pajment  to  be  made  in  a  given  time. 
In  both  cases,  the  situation  of  the  adventurer  is  exactly  the 
same  :  if  he  succeeds,  he  may  secure  an  independency  ;  if  he 
is  unsuccessful,  his  person  and  services  are  at  the  disposal  of 
another ;  for,  in  Africa,  not  only  the  effects  of  the  in&olvent, 
but  the  insolvent  himself,  is  sold  to  satisfy  the  lawful  demands 


t 

324  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

of  his  creditors."*  Insolvency,  however,  is,  after  all,  rather 
a  misf<g;tune  than  a  crime  ;  and  we  rank  it  here  as  a  crime, 
more  in  deference  to  the  institutions  of  the  ancients,  and  the 
customs  of  certain  modern  nations,  than  as  an  indication  of 
our  tfwn  sentiments — for  we  are  decidedly  of  opinion,  that 
slavery  is  much  too  high  a  penalty  to  be  attached  to  what,  in 
many  cases,  is  sheer  misfortune.  But,  besides  insolvency,  the 
laws  of  Africa  affix  slavery  as  a  punishment  to  the  ciTmes  of 
murder,  adultery,  and  witchcraft.  In  case  of  murder,  the 
nearest  relation  of  the  murdered,  after  conviction,  may  either 
kill  or  sell  into  slavery,  at  his  option.  In  adultery,  the 
oS'ended  party  may  enslave  or  demand  a  ransom  at  pleasure ; 
and  as  to  witchcraft,  Parke  not  having  met  with  any  trial  for 
this  offence,  could  only  assure  ITS  that  it  was  the  source  of 
slavery,  though  not  common.f  We  have  now  surveyed  the 
principal  sources  of  slavery,  and  although  we  do  not  pretend 
to  be  minute  and  complete  in  the  division  which  we  have 
made,  we  hope  we  have  said  enough  upon  this  branch  to 
show  that  slavery  is  inevitable  in  the  progress  of  society, 
from  its  first  and  most  savage  state,  to  the  last  and  most 
refined.  We  started  out  with  announcing  the  fact,  startling 
to  those  who  have  never  reflected  upon  the  subject,  that 
slavery  existed  throughout  the  whole  of  the  ancient,  and  in  a 
very  large  portion  of  the  modern  world.  We  have  farther 
shown  by  the  preceding  reasoning,  that  this  was  no  accident, 
the  mere  result  of  chance,  but  was  a  necessary  and  inevitable 
consequence  of  the  principles  of  human  nature  and  the  state 
of  property.  We  shall  now  proceed  to  inquire  briefly  into 
the  advantages  which  have  resulted  to  mankind  from  the 
institution  of  slavery. 

Advantages  whichTiave  resulted  to  the  ivorld  from  Hie  in- 

*  Parke's  Travels  iu  Africa,  p.  216. 
•f  Parke's  Travels,  p.  217. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  Otf  SLAYERT.  825 

stitution  of  slavery. — "When  we  turn  our  thoughts  from  this 
world  uof  imperfections"  to  the  God  of  nature,  we  love  to 
contemplate  Him  as  perfect  and  immaculate,  and  amid  all  the 
divine  attributes  with  which  we  delight  to  clothe  Him,  none 
stands  more  conspicuous  than  his  benevolence.  To  look  upon 
Him  in  this  light,  may  be  said  to  be  almost  the  impulse  of 
an  instinct  of  our  nature,  and  the  most  enlarged  experience 
and  perfect  knowledge  combine  in  fortifying  and  strengthen- 
ing this  belief.  Accordingly,  when  we  look  abroad  to  the 
works  of  Omnipotence,  when  we  contemplate  the  external, 
the  physical  world,  and  again,  when  we  turn  to  the  world  of 
mind,  we  never  find  evil  the  sole  object  and  end  of  creation. 
Happiness  is  always  the  main  design ;  evil  is  merely  inciden- 
tal. All  the  laws  of  matter,  every  principle,  and  even  passion 
of  man,  when  rightly  understood,  demonstrate  the  general  be- 
nevolence of  the  Deity,  even  in  this  world.  "  It  is,  perhaps," 
says  Mr.  Allison,  "  the  most  striking  and  the  most  luminous  fact 
in  the  history  of  our  intellectual  nature,  that  that  principle  of 
curiosity  which  is  the  instinctive  spring  of  all  scientific  inquiry 
into  the  phenomena  of  matter  or  mind,  is  never  satisfied  until 
it  terminates  in  the  discovery,  not  only  of  design,  but  of  be- 
nevolent design."  Well,  then,  might  we  have  concluded, 
from  the  fact  that  slavery  was  the  necessary  result  of  the  laws 
of  mind  and  matter,  that  it  marked  some  benevolent  design, 
and  was  intended  by  our  Creator  for  some  useful  purpose. 
Let  us  inquire,  then,  what  that  useful  purpose  is,  and  we  have 
no  hesitation  in  affirming  that  slavery  has  been,  perhaps,  the 
principal  means  for  impelling  forward  the  civilization  of  man- 
kind. Without  its  agency,  society  must  have  remained  sunk 
into  that  deplorable  state  of  barbarism  and  wretchedness 
which  characterized  the  inhabitants  of  the  Western  World, 
when  first  discovered  by  Columbus. 
We  have  already  spoken  of  the  great  ad vajitaga  of  slavery 
28 


326  PROFESSQR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

in  mitigating  the  horrors  of  savage  warfare  ;  but  not  only  is 
this  most  desirable  effect  produced,  but  it  has  a  farther  ten- 
dency  to  check  the  frequency  of  war,  and   to  destroy  that 
migratory  spirit  in  nations  and  tribes,  so  destructive  to  the 
peace  and  tranquillity  of  the  world.     Savages,  living  in  the 
hunting  state,  must  have  an   extensive  range  of  country,  for 
the  supply  of  the  wants  of  even  a  few  persons.     "  Hence," 
says  Dr.  Robertson,   "  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  pre- 
vent neighboring  tribes  from  destroying  or   disturbing  the 
game  in  their  hunting  grounds,  they  gaard  this  national  pro- 
perty with  a  jealous  attention.     Egat   as  their  territories  are 
extensive,  and  the  boundaries  of  them  not  exactly  ascertained, 
innumerable  subjects  of  disputes  arise,  which   seldom  termi- 
nate without  bloodshed."*     Uncertain   boundaries,  constant 
roaming  through  the  forests,  in   search  of  game,  and  all  the 
unchecked  and  furious  passions  of  the  savage,  lead  on   to 
constant  and  exterminating  wars  among  the  tribes.     What, 
then,  let  us -ask,  can  alone  prevent  this  constant  scene  of 
strife  and  massacre  ?     Nothing  but  that  which  can  bind  them 
down  to  the  soil,  which  can  establish  homes  and  fi  esides, 
which  can  change  the  wandering  character  of  the  savage,  and 
make  it  his  interest  to  cultivate  peace  instead  of  war.     Slavery 
produces  these  effects.  It  necessarily  leads  on  to  the  taming  and 
rearing  of  numerous  flocks,  and  to  the  cultivation  of  the  soil. 
Hunting  can  never  support  slavery.     Agriculture  fret  sug- 
gests the  notion  of  servitude,  and,  as  often  happens  in  the 
politico-economical  world,  the  effect  becomes,  in  turn,  a  pow- 
erfully operating  cause.     Slavery  gradually  fells   the   forest, 
and  thereby  destroys  the  haunts  of  the  wild  beasts  ;  it  gives 
rise  to  agricultural  production,  and  thereby  renders  mankind 
less  dependent  on  the  precarious  and  diminishing  production 

*  Hi&tory  of  Amer.'ca,  vol.  1,  p.  192. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  327 

of  the  chase ;  it  thus  gradually  destroys  the  roving  and  un- 
quiet life  of  the  savage  ;  it  furnishes  a  home,  and  binds  him 
down  to  the  soil  ;  it  converts  the  idler  and  the  wanderer  into 
the  man  of  business  and  the  agriculturist. 

If  we  look  to  the  condition  of  Africa,  and  compare  it  with 
that  of  the  American  Indians,  w^  shall  find  a  complete  illus- 
tration of  these  remarks,  and  Africa,  as  we  shall  soon  see, 
would  enjoy  a  much  greater  exemption  from  war,  if  it  were 
not  for  the  slave  trade,  whose  peculiar  operation  we  shall 
presently  notice. 

But,  secondly,  the  labor  of  the  slave,  \vhen  slavery  is  first 
introduced,  is  infinitely  more  productive  than  that  of  the 
freeman.  Dr.  Robertson,  in  his  History  of  America,  speaks 
of  the  acquisition  of  dominion  over  the  inferior  animals,  as  a 
step  of  capital  importance  in  the  progress  of  civilization.  It 
may  with  truth  be  affirmed,  that  the  taming  of  man  and  ren- 
dering him  fit  for  labor,  is  more  important  than  the  taming 
and  using  the  inferior  animals,  and  nothing  seems  so  well  cal- 
culated to  effect  this  as  slavery.  Savages  have  ever  been 
found  to  be  idle  and  unproductive,  except  in  the  chase.  "The 
aborigines  of  North  America  resembled  rather  beasts  of  prey," 
says  Dr.  Robertson,  "  than  animals  formed  for  labor.  They 
were  not  only  averse  from  toil,  but  seemed  at  first  entirely 
incapable  of  it.  There  is  nothing. which  so"feompletely  proves 
the  general  indolence  and  inactivity  of  the  Indian,  as  their 
very  moderate  appetites^  Their  constitutional  temperance 
exceeded  that  of  the  most  mortified  hermits,  and  the  appe- 
tites of  the  Spaniards  (generally  reckoned  very  temperate  in 
Europe)  appeared  to  the  natives  insatiably  voracious,  and 
they  affirmed  that  one  Spaniard  devoured,  in  a  day,  more 
food  than  was  enough  for  ten  Indians.* 

*  Robertson's  America,  voL  l,book  4. 


328  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

The  improvidence  and  utter  recklessness  of  tlie  savage  are 
noticed,  too,  by  all  the  historians.  "  They  follow  blindly," 
says  Robertson,  "  the  impulse  of  the  appetite  which  they  feel, 
but  are  entirely  regardless  of  distant  consequences,  and  even 
of  those  removed  in  the  least  degree  from  immediate  appre- 
hension. When,  on  the  approach  of  evening,  a  Carabee  feels 
himself  disposed  to  go  to  rest,  no  consideration  will  tempt 
him  to  sell  his  hammock  ;  but  in  the  morning,  when  he  is 
sallying  out  to  the  business  or  pastime  of  the  day,  he  will 
part  with  it  for  the  slightest  toy  that  catches  his  fancy.  At 
the  close  of  winter,  while  the  impression  of  what  he  has  suf- 
fered from  the  rigor  of  the  climate  is  fresh  in  the  mind  of  the 
North  American,  he  sets  himself  with  vigor  to  prepare  mate- 
rials for  erecting  a  comfortable  hut,  to  protect  him  against  the 
inclemency  of  the  succeeding  season ;  but  as  soon  as  the 
•weather  becomes  mild,  he  forgets  what  is  past, -abandons  his 
work,  and  never  thinks  of  it  more,  until  the  return  of  cold 
compels  him,  when  too  late,  to  resume  it."*  There  is  nothing 
but  slavery  which  can  destroy  those  habits  of  indolence  and 
sloth,  and  eradicate  the  character  of  improvidence  and  care- 
lessness, which  mark  the  independent  savage.  He  may  truly 
be  compared  to  the  wild  beast  of  the  forest — he  must  be 
broke  and  tamed,  before  he  becomes  fit  for  labor,  and  for  the 
task  of  rearing  and  providing  fora  family.  There  is  nothing 
but  slavery  that  can  eft'ect  this  ;  the  means  may  appear  ex- 
ceedingly harsh  and  cruel,  and,  as  among  wild  beasts,  many 
may  die  in  the  process  of  taming  and  subjugating,  so  among 
savages,  many  may  not  be  able  to  stand  the  hardships  of  ser- 
vitude ;  but,  in  the  end,  it  leads  on  to  a  milder  and  infinitely 
better  condition  than  that  of  savage  independence,  gives  rise 
to  greater  production,  increases  the  provisions  in  nature's 

*  History  of  America,  vol.  1,  pp.  170, 171. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  329 

great  storehouse,  and  invites  into  existence  a  more  numerous 
population,  better  fed  and  better  provided,  and  thus  gives  rise 
to  society,  and,  consequently,  speeds  on  more  rapidly  the 
cause  of  civilization.  But  upon  this  great,  this  delicate  and 
all-important  subject,  we  wish  to  risk  no  vain  theories,  no  un- 
founded conjectures — from  beginning  to  end,  we  shall  speak 
conscientiously,  and  never  knowingly  plant  in  our  bosom  a 
thorn  which  may  rankle  there.  Let  us,  then,  see  whether 
the  above  assertions  may  not  be  satisfactorily  proved,  para- 
doxical as  they  may  at  first  appear,  by  fact  and  experience. 
If  we  turn  to  the  Western  World,  where  an  ample  field  is 
presented  for  the  contemplation  of  man,  in  his  first  and  rudest 
state,  we  find  that  slavery  existed  nowhere  throughout  the 
American  continent,  except  in  Peru  and  Mexico,  and  these 
were  decidedly  the  most  flourishing  portions  of  this  vast  con- 
tinent. "  When  compared,"  says  Dr.  Robertson,  "  with  other 
parts  of  the  New  World,  Mexico  and  Peru  may  be  considered 
as  polished  states.  Instead  of  small,  independent,  hostile  tribes, 
strnorrlin£i  for  subsistence  amidst  woods  and  marshes,  stran- 

O^  O 

gers  to  industry  and  arts,  unacquainted  with  subordination, 
and  almost  without  the  appearance  of  regular  government, 
we  find  countrief^f  great  extent  subjected  to  the  dominion  of 
one  sovereign,"the4bhabitants  collected  together  in  cities,  the 
wisdom  and  foresigffijjk>f  rulers  employed  in, providing  for  the 
maintenance  and  jse?i&jty  of  the  people,  the  empire  of  laws 
in  some  measure/estafti|B|d,  the  authority  of  religion  recog- 
nized, many  of ''the  af&Jessintial  to  life  brought  to  some  de- 
gree of  maturity,  and  fife  'dawn  of  such  as  are  ornamental 
beginning  to  appear."* 

Again :  In  the  Islands  of  the  South  Sea,  Captain  Cook  was 
astonished  at  the  populousness  of  Otaheite  and  the  Society 

*  Robertson's  America,  vol.  2,  page  101. 
28* 


330  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

Islands.  Slavery  seems  to  have  been  established  throughout 
these  Islands,  and  compensated,  no  doubt,  in  part,  for  many 
of  those  abomidable  practices  which  seem  to  have  been  pre- 
valent among  the  natives. 

Again  :  On  turning  to  Africa,  where  we  find  the  inost 
abundant  and  complete  exemplifications  of  every  species  of 
slavery,  and  its  effects,  and  where,  consequently,  the  philoso- 
phy of  the  subject  may  be  most  advantageously  studied,  we 
find  most  conclusive  proof  of  our  assertions.  "It  deserves 
particular  notice,  that  the  nations  in  this  degrading  condition 
(state  of  slavery)  are  the  most  -numerous,  the  most  powerful, 
and  the  most  advanced  in  all  the  arts  and  improvements  of 
life;  that,  if  we  except  the  human  sacrifices  to  which  blind 
veneration  prompts  them,  they  display  even  a  disposition 
more  amiable,  manners  more  dignified  and  polished,  and 
moral  conduct  more  correct,  than  prevail  among  the  citizens 
of  the  small  free  states,  who  are  usually  idle,  turbulent, 
quarrelsome  and  licentious."*  The  Africans,  too,  disj  Jay,  in 
a  remarkable  degree,  the  love  of  heme,  and  fondness  for  their 
native  scenes — a  mark  of  considerable  advancement  in  civili- 
zation. "Few  of  them,"  says  the  author  of  the  History  of 
Africa  just  quoted,  "  are  nomadic  and  wandering  ;  they  gene- 
rally have  native  seats,  to  which  they  cling  with  strong  feel- 
ings of  local  attachment.  Even  the  tenants  of  the  desert, 
•who  roam  widely  in  quest  of  commerce  and  plunder,  have 
their  little  watered  valleys,  or  circuit  of  hills,  in  which  they 
make  their  permanent  abode. "f  Can  any  general  facts  more 
strikingly  illustrate  our  position  than  those  which  we  have 
just  mentioned? 

But  there  is  other,  and  abundant  testimony,  on  this  subject ; 

*  See  Family  Library,  No.  1C,  page  237,  Africa, 
t  Family  Library,  No.  16,  page  228. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  331 

the  difference  between  the  negroes  imported  into  the  West 
Indies  still  farther  substantiates  all  we  have  said.  The  ne- 
groes from  Whida,  or  Fida,  called  in  the  West  Indies  Papaws, 
are  the  best  disposed  and  most  docile  slaves.  The  reason 
seems  to  be,  that  the  great  majority  of  these  people  are  in  a 
state  of  absolute  slavery  in  Africa;  and  "  Bosnian,"  says 
Bryan  Edwards,  "speaks  with  rapture  of  the  improved  state 
of  their  soil,  the  number  of  villages,  and  the  industry,  riches* 
and  obliging  manners  of  the  natives."*  So  that  slavery  seems 
to  be  an  incalculable  advantage  to  them,  both  in  the  West 
Indies  and  in  their  own  country. 

The  Koromantyn,  or  Gold  Coast  negro,  is  generally  stub- 
born, intractable,  and  until  for  labor,  at  first.  His  habits,  in 
his  native  country,  are  very  similar  to  those  of  the  North 
American  Indian.  He  must  be  broke  and  tamed,  before  he 
is  fit  for  labor.  When  the}7  are  thus  tamed,  however,  they 
become  the  best  laborers  in  the  West  Indies.  "  They  some- 
times,"' says  Bryan  Edwards,  '*  take  to  labor  with  great  promp- 
titude andt  alacrity,  and  have  constitutions  well  adapted  to  it." 
And  he  gives,  as  a  reason  for  this,  that  "  many  of  them  have 
undoubtedly  been  slaves  in  Africa."  Still,  this  country  seems 
yet  too  barbarous  for  a  regular  system  of  slavery.  Accord- 
ingly, the  Koromantyns  are  described  as  among  the  most 
ferocious  of  the  Africans  in  war,  never  sparing  the  life  of  an 
enemy,  except  to  make  him  a  slave,  and  that  but  rarely. 
Their  whole  education  and  philosophy,  consequently,  seem 
,  directed,  as  is  the  case  with  all  savages,  to  prepare  and  steel 
them  against  the  awful  vicissitudes  to  which  they  are  ever 
liable — they  have  their  yell  of  war,  and  their  death  songs  too. 
Nothing  but  slavery  can  civilize  such  beings,  give  them  habits 


*  Edward's  West  Indies,  vol.  2,  pp.  278,  279. 


, 

332  PROFESSOR  DEW  OX  SLAVERY. 

of  industry,  and  make   them   cling  to   life   for  its   enjoy- 
ments.* 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  we  have  little  hesitation  in  decla- 
ring it  as  our  opinion,  that  a  much  greater  number  of  Indians, 
within  the  limits  of  the  United  States,  would  have  been  saved, 
had  we  rigidly  persevered  in  enslaving  them,  than  by  our  pre- 
-•  sent  policy.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  most  melancholy  fact  con- 
nected with  the  history  of  our  young  republic,  that  in  propor- 
tion as  the  whites  have  been  advancing,  the  Indians  have  been 
constantly  and  rapidly  decreasing  in  numbers.  When  our 
ancestors  first  settled  on  this  continent,  the  savages  were 
around  and  among  them,  and  were  everywhere  spread  over 
this  immense  territory.  Now,  wliere  are  they  ?  Where  are 
the  warlike  tribes  that  went  to  battle  under  their  chieftains  ? 
They  have  rapidly  disappeared,  as  the  pale  faces  havev  ad- 
vanced. Their  numbers  have  dwindled  to  insignificance. 
AVithin  the  limits  of  the  original  States,  the  primitive  stock 
has  been  reduced  to  16,000.  Within  the  whole  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  east  of  the  Mississippi,  there  are  but  -105,000; 
and  on  the  whole  of  our  territory,  east  and  west  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, extending  over  24  derees  of  latitude  and  58  of  lon- 
gitude, there  are  but  313,130  !  !  Miserable  remnant  of  the 
myriads  of  former  days  !  And  yet  the  government  of  our 
country  has  exhausted  every  means  for  their  civilization,  and 

*  This  increasing  love  of  life,  as  an  effect  of  slavery,  is  exemplified 
in  the  following  anecdote,  related  by  Edwards :  "  A  gentleman  of 
Jamaica,  visiting  a  valuable  Koromantyn  negro,  that  was  sick;  and 
perceiving  that  he  was  thoughtful  and  dejected,  endeavored,  by  sooth- 
ing and  encouraging  language,  to  raise  his  drooping  spirits.  '  Massa,' 
said  the  negro,  in  a  tone  of  self-reproach  and  conscious  degeneracy, 
'since me  come  to  white  man's  country,  me  lub  (love)  life  too^uch.' '' 
History  of  the  West  Indies,  vol.  2,  p.  275. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  333 

the  philanthropist  has  not  been  idle  in  their  behalf.  Schools 
have  been  erected,  both  public  and  private,  missionaries  have 
been  sent  among  them,  and  all  in  vain.  The  President  of  the 
United  States  now  tells  you  that  their  removal  farther  West 
is  necessary — that  those  who  live  on  our  borders,  in  spite  of 
our  efforts  to  civilize  them,  are  rapidly  deteriorating  in  cha- 
racter, and  becoming  every  day  more  miserable  and  destitute. 
We  agree  with  the  President  in  this  policy — to  remove  them 
is  all  we  can  now  do  for  them.  But,  after  all,  the  expedient 
is  temporary,  and  the  relief  is  short  lived.  Our  population 
will  again,  and  at  no  distant  day,  press  upon  their  borders, 
their  game  will  be  destroyed,  the  intoxicating  beverage  will 
be  furnished  to  them,  they  will  engage  in  wars,  and  their 
total  extermination  will  be  the  inevitable  consequence.  The 
hand  writing  has  indeed  appeared  on  the  -wall.  The  myste- 
rious decree  of  Providence  has  gone  forth  against  the  red 
man.  His  destiny  is  fixed,  and  final  destruction  is  his  inevi- 
table fate.  Slavery,  we  assert  again,  seems  to  be  the  only 
means  that  we  know  of,  under  heaven,  by  which  the  ferocity 
of  the  savage  can  be  conquered,  his  wandering  habits  eradi- 
cated, his  slothfulness  and  improvidence — by  which,  in  fine, 
his  nature  can  be  changed.  The  Spaniards  enslaved  the  In- 
dians in  South- America,  and  they  were  the  most  cruel  and 
relentless  of  masters.  Still,  under  their  system  of  cruel  and 
harsh  discipline,  an  infinitely  larger  proportion  of  the  abo- 
rigines were  saved  than  with  us,  and  will,  no  doubt,  in  the 
lapse  of  ages,  mix  and  harmonize  with  the  Europeans,  and  be, 
in  all  respects,  their  equals.* 

*  Humboldt,  in  his  recapitulation  of  the  population  of  New  Spain, 
gives  us  the  following  table  : 
Indigenous,  or  Indians,        --....         2,500,000 

Whites,  or  Spaniards,  J  Creole*.     1.025000)        .         .         1,100,000 
(  Europeans,     70,000  ) 


334  PROFESSOR  DEW  OX  SLAVERY. 

From  their  inhuman  treatment  of  the  Indians,  at  first, 
numbers  died  in  the  process  of  taming  and  subjugating;  but, 
in  the  end,  their  system  has  proved  more  humane  than  ours, 
and  demonstrates,  beyond  a  doubt,  that  nothing  is  so  fit  as 
slavery,  to  change  the  nature  of  the  savage.*  "  We  observe," 
says  Humboldt,  "  and  the  observation  is  consoling  to  human- 
ity, that  not  only  has  the  number  of  Indians  in  South  Ame- 
rica and  Mexico  been  c?n  the  increase,  for  the  last  century, 
(he  published  his  work  in  1808,)  but  that  the  whole  of  the 
vast  region  which  we  designate  by  the  general  name  of 
New  Spain,  is  much  better  inhabited  at  psesent  than  it  was 
before  the  arrival  of  the  Europeans."!  lie  gives  a  very  re- 
markable instance  of  the  effects  of  even  unjust  slavery,  on 
the  industry  and  agriculture  of  the  country.  He  speaks  of 
the  Alcaldias  Mayores,  a  sort  of  provincial  magistrates  and 
judges  in  Mexico,  forcing  the  Indians  to  purchase  cattle  of 
them,  and  afterwards  reducing  them  to  slavery,  for  non-pay- 
ment of  the  debts  thus  contracted.  And  he  adds,  upon  the 
authority  of  Fray  Antonio,  Monk  of  St.  Jerome,  that  "the 
individual  happiness  of  these  unfortunate  .wretches  was  not, 
certainly,  increased  by  the  sacrifice  of  their  liberty,  for  a  horse 
or  a  mule  to  work  for  their  master's  profit ;  but  yet,  in  this 

• 
African  negroes,       -         -         -         -         -         -         ---         6,100 

Casts  of  mixed  blood,          -         -  ...         1.231,000 

[Humboldt's  New  Spain,  N.  Y.  ed.,  vol.  2,  p.  246. 
Again:  The  number  of  Indians  in   Peru  is  estimated  at  600,000 
nearly  double  of  the  whole  Indian  population  of  the  United  States. — • 
[Vol.  1,  p.  69. 

,*  We  shati  soon  see  that  there  is  not,  in  the  annals  of  history,  an 
instance  of  such  rapid  improvement  in  civilization,  as  that  undergone 
by  the  negro  slaves  in  our  country,  since  the  time  they  were  first 
brought  among  us. 

t  Humboldt's  New  Spain,  vol.  1,  p.  71. 


PROFESSOR,  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  335 

slate  of  things,  brought  on  by  abuses,  agriculture  and  indus- 
try were  seen  to  increase"* 

We  beg  our  readers  to  bear  in  mind,  that  we  are  here 
merely  discussing  the  effects  of  slavery,  and  not  passing  our 
opinions  upon  the  justice  or  injustice  of  its  oiigin.  We  shall 
now  close  our  remarks  upon  this  head,  by  the  citation  of  an 
instance  furnished  by^our  own  country,  of  the  great  advan- 
tage of  slavery  to  masters — for,  among  savages,  the  benefit 
seems  to  extend  to  both  master  and  slave.  There  is  an  able 
article  in  the  66th  number  of  the  North  American  Review,  on, 
the  "Removal  of  the  Indians,"  from  the  pen  of  Governor 
Cass,  whom  we  have  no  hesitation,  from  the  little  we  have 
seen  of  his  productions,  to  pronounce  one  of  the  most  philo- 
sophical and  elegant  writers  in  this  country.  In  this  article, 
after  pointing  out  the  true  condition  of  the  Indian  tribes  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  whites,  and  proving,  beyond  a  doubt, 
that  they  are  injured,  instead  of  benen'tted,  by  their  juxta- 
position, he  admits  that  the  Cherokees  constitute  a  solitary, 
and  but  a  partial  exception— rthat  some  individuals  among 
them  have  acquired  property,  and,  with  it,  more  enlarged 
and  just  notions  of  the  value  of  our  institutions.  He  says 
that  these  salutary  changes  are  confined  principally  to  the 
half  breeds,  and  their  immediate  connexions,  and  are  not 
sufficiently  numerous  to  overturn -his  reasoning,  against  the 
practicability  of  civilizing  the  Indians.  Now,  what  are  the 
causes  of  this  dawn  of  civilization  among  the  Cherokees  ? 
"  The  causes  which  have  led  to  this  state  of  things,"  says 
Governor  Cass,  "are  too  peculiar  ever  to  produce  an  extensive 
result.  .  .  .  They  have  been  operating  for  many  years, 
and  amon</  the  most  prominent  of  them,  has  been  the  intro- 
duction of  slaves,  by  which  means,  that  unconquerable  aver- 

te 

*  Vol.  1,  pp.  146, 147. 


336  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

sion  to  labor,  so  characteristic  of  all  savage  tribes,  can  be 
indulged."* 

We  hope,  now,  we  have  said  enough  to  convince  even  the 
most  sceptical,  of  the  powerful  effects  of  slavery,  in  changing 
the  habits  peculiar  to  the  Indian  or  savage,  by  converting  him 
into  the  agriculturist,  and  changing  his  slothfulness  and  aver- 
sion to  labor  into  industry  and  economy,  thereby  rendering 
his  labor  more  productive,  his  means  of  subsistence  more 
abundant  anxl  regular,  and  his  happiness  more  secure  and 
constant.  We  cannot  close  our  remarks  on  the  general  effects 
of  slavery  on  the  progress  of  civilization,  without  pointing 
out  the  peculiar  influence  on  that  portion  of  the  human  race, 
•which  the  civilized  nations  of  modern  times  so  much  delight 
to  honor  and  to  cherish — the  fair  sex. 

3.  Influence  of  slavery  on  the  condition  of  the  female 
sex. — The  bare  name  of  this  interesting  half  of  the  human 
family,  is  well  calculated  to  awaken  in  the  breast  of  tl.e  gen- 
erous the  feeling  of  tenderness  and  kindness.  The  wrongs 
and  sufferings  of  meek,  quiet,  forbearing  woman,  awaken  the 
generous  sympathy  of  every  noble  heart.  Man  never  suffers 
without  murmuring,  and  never  relinquishes  his  rights  without 
a  struggle.  It  is  not  always  so  with  woman  :  her  physical 
weakness  incapacitates  her  for  the  combat ;  her  sexual  organi- 
zation, and  the  part  which  she  takes  in  bringing  foith  and 
nurturing  the  rising  generation,  render  her  necessarily  domes- 
tic in  her  habits,  and  timid  and  patient  in  her  sufferings.  If 
man  choose  to  exercise  his  power  against  woman,  she  is  sure 

*  See  North  American  Review,  No.  66,  article  3.  The  Spaniards, 
when  they  first  conquered  Mexico  and  Peru,  were,  as  we  have  already 
said,  the  most  cruel  and  relentless  of  masters.  They  are  now  the  mo^t 
humane  and  kind,  and  perhaps  the  Portuguese  come  next,  who  were 
equally  cruel  with  the  Spaniards,  during  the  fir&t  century  alter  their 
settlement  in  tae  New  World. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  33*7 

to  fall  an  easy  prey  to  his  oppression.  He,nce,  we  may  al- 
ways consider  her  progressing  elevation  in  society  as  a  mark 
of  advancing  civilization,  and,  more  particularly,  of  the  aug- 
mentation of  disinterested  and  generous  virtue.  The  lot  of 
women,  among  savages,  has  always  been  found  to  be  painful 
and  degrading.  Dr.  Robertson  says  that,  in  America,  their 
condition  "  is  so  peculiarly  grievous,  and  their  depression  so 
complete,  that  servitude  is  a  name  too  mild  to  describe  their 
wretched  state.  A  wife,  among  most  tribes,  is  no  better  than 
a  beast  of  burthen,  destined  to  every  office  of  labor  and  fa- 
tigue. While  the  men  loiter  out  the  day  in  sloth,  or  spend 
it  in  amusement,  the  women  are  condemned  to  excessive  toil. 
Tasks  are  imposed  on  them  without  pity,  and  services  are 
received  without  complacence  or  gratitude.  Every  circum- 
stance reminds  women  of  this  mortifying  inferiority.  They 
must  approach  their  lords  with  reverence.  They  must  regard 
them  as  more  exalted  beings,  and  are  not  permitted  to  eat  in 
their  presence.  There  are  districts  in  America  where  this 
dominion  is  so  grievous,  and  so  sensibly  felt,  that  some  wo- 
men, in  a  wild  emotion  of  maternal  tenderness,  have  destroyed 
their  female  children  in  their  infancy,  in  order  to  deliver  them 
from  that  intolerable  bondage  to  which  they  knew  they  were 
doomed."* 

This  harrowing  description  of  woman's  servitude  and  suf- 
ferings, among  the  aborigines  of  America,  is  applicable  to  all 
savage  nations.  In  the  Islands  of  Andaman,  in  Van  Die,, 
man's  Land,  in  New  Zealand,f  and  New  Holland,  the  lot  of 
woman  is  the  same.  The  females  carry,  on  their  heads  and 
bodies,  the  traces  of  the  superiority  of  the  males.  Mr.  Col- 

*  Robertson's  America,  vol.  1,  p.  177. 

f  In  New  Zealand,  agriculture  has  worked  a  most  wonderful  change 
in  the  lot  of  woman.     She  is  now  more  respected  and  loved.     See 
Library  of  Entertaining  Knowledge,  vol.  5,  JSTew  Zealanders. 
29 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLA  VERT. 

lins  says,  of  the  women  of  New  South  Wales,  "  Their  condi- 
tion is  so  wretched,  that  I  have  often,  on  seeing  a  female 
child  borne  on  its  mother's  shoulders,  anticipated  the  miseries 
to  which  it  was  born,  and  thought  it  would  be  mercy  to  de- 
stroy it."  And  thus  it  is  that  the  most  important  of  all  con- 
nections, the  marriage  tie,  is  perverted,  to  the  production  of 
the  degradation  and  misery  of  the  one  sex,  and  the  arrogant 
assumption  and  unfeeling  cruelty  of  the  other.  But  the  evil 
stops  not  with  the  sufferings  of  woman — her  prolificness  is  in 
a  measure  destroyed.  Unaided  by  the  male  in  the  rearing 
of  her  children,  and  being  forced  to  bear  them  on  their  shoul- 
ders, when  the  huntsmen  are  roaming  through  the  forest, 
many  of  their  offspring  must  die,  from  the  vicissitudes  to 
which  they  are  subjected  at  so  tender  an  age.  Moreover, 
"  among  wandering  tribes,"  says  Dr.  Robertson,  "  the  mother 
cannot  attempt  to  rear  a  second  child  until  the  first  has  at- 
tained such  a  degree  of  vigor  as  to  be  in  some  measure  inde- 
pendent of  her  care.  .  .  .  When  twins  are  born,  one  of 
them  is  commonly  abandoned,  because  the  mother  is  not 
equal  to  the  task  of  rearing  both.  When  a  mother  dies 
while  she  is  nursing  a  child,  all  hope  of  preserving  its  life 
fails,  and  it  is  buried,  together  with  her,  in  the  same  grave."* 
It  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  continue  farther  this  shock- 
ing picture  ;  but  let  us  proceed  at  once  to  inquire  if  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery  is  not  calculated  to  relieve  the  sufferings 
and  wrongs  of  injured  woman,  and  elevate  her  in  the  scale 
of  existence  ?  Slavery,  we  have  just  seen,  changes  the  hunt- 
ing to  the  shepherd  and  agricultural  states, — gives  rise  to  aug- 
mented productions,  and,  consequently,  furnishes  more  abun- 
dant supplies  for  man.  The  labor  of  the  slave  thus  becomes 
a  substitute  for  that  of  the  woman;  man  no  longer  wanders 

*  Robertson's  America,  vol.  1,  p.  177. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  339 

through  the  -forest,  in  quest  of  game  ;  and  woman,  consequent- 
ly, is  relieved  from  following  on  his  track,  under  the  enerva- 
ting and  harassing  burthen  of  her  children.  She  is  now  sur- 
rounded by  her  domestics,  and  the  abundance  of  their  labor 
lightens  the  toil  and  hardships  of  the  whole  family.  She 
ceases  to  be  a  mere  "  beast  of  burthen  ;"  becomes  the  cheer- 
ing and  animating  centre  of  the  family  circle — time  is  afford- 
ed for  reflection  and  the  cultivation  of  all  those  mild  and  fas- 
cinating virtues,  which  throw  a  charm  and  delight  around 
our  homes  and  firesides,  and  calm  and  tranquillize  the  harsher 
tempers  and  more  restless  propensities  of  the  male  :  Man, 
too,  relieved  from  that  endless  disquietude  about  subsistence 
for  the  morrow — relieved  of  the  toil  of  wandering  over  the 
forest — more  amply  provided  for  by  the  productions  of  the 
soil — finds  his  habits  changed,  his  temper  moderated,  his 
kindness  and  benevolence  increased ;  he  loses  that  savage  and 
brutal  feeling  which  he  had  before  indulged  towards  all  his 
unfortunate  dependants  ;  and,  consequently,  even  the  slave, 
in  the  agricultural,  is  happier  than  the  free  man  in  the  hunt- 
ing state. 

In  the  very  first  remove  from  the  most  savage  state,  we 
behold  the  marked  effects  of  slavery  on  the  condition  of  wo- 
man— we  find  her  at  once  elevated,  clothed  with  all  her 
charms,  mingling  with  and  directing  the  society  to  which  she 
belongs,  no  longer  the  slave,  but  the  equal  and  the  idol  of 
man.  The  Greeks  and  Trojans,  at  the  siege  of  Troy,  were  in 
this  state,  and  some  of  the  most  interesting  and  beautiful 
passages  in  the  Iliad  relate  to  scenes  of  social  intercourse  and 
conjugal  affection,  where  woman,  unawed  and  in  all  the  pride 
of  conscious  equality,  bears  a  most  conspicuous  part.  Thus, 
Helen  and  Andromanche  are  frequently  represented  as  ap- 
pearing in  company  with  the  Trojan  chiefs,  and  mingling 
freely  in  conversation  with  them.  Attended  only  by  one  or 


340  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

two  maid  servants,  they  walk  through  the  streets  of  Troy,  as 
business  or  fancy  directs :  even  the  prudent  Penelope,  perse- 
cuted as  she  is  by  her -suitors,  does  not  scruple  occasionally  to 
appear  among  them  ;  and  scarcely  more  reserve  seems  to  be 
imposed  on  virgins  than  married  women.  Mitford  has  well 
observed,  that  "  Homer's  elegant  eulogiums  and  Hesiod's  se- 
vere sarcasm,  equally  prove  woman  to  have  been  in  their  days 
important  members  of  society.  The  character  of  Penelope  in 
the  Odyssee,  is  the  completest  panegyric  on  the  sex  that  ever 
was  composed  ;  and  no  language  even  give  a  more  elegant 
or  more  highly  colored  picture  of  conjugal  affection,  than  is 
displayed  in  the  conversation  of  Hector  and  Andromanche,  in 
the  6th  book  of  the  Iliad."* 

The  Teutonic  races  who  inhabited  the  mountains  and  fast- 
nesses of  Germany,  were  similarly  situated  to  the  Greeks  ; 
and  even  before  they  left  their  homes  to  move  down  upon  the 
Roman  Empire,  they  were  no  more  distinguished  by  their 
deeds  in  arms,  than  for  devotion  and  attention  to  the  weaker 
sex.  So  much  were  they  characterized  by  this  elevation  of 
the  female  sex,  that  Gilbert  Stuart  does  not  hesitate  to  trace 
the  institution  of  chivalry,  whose  origin  has  never  yet  been 
satisfactorily  illustrated,  to  the  German  manners.f 

Again  :  if  we  descend  to  modern  times,  we  see  much  the 
largest  portion  of  Africa  existing  in  this  second  stage  of  civili- 
zation, and,  consequently,  we  find  woman  in  an  infinitely  bet- 
ter condition  than  we  any  where  find  her  among  the  abori- 
gines on  the  American  continent.  And  thus  is  it  a  most 
singular  and  curious  fact,  that  woman,  whose  sympathies  are 
ever  alive  to  the  distress  of  others ;  whose  heart  is  filled  with 
benevolence  and  philanthropy,  and  whose  fine  feelings,  un- 

*  See  Mitford's  Greece,  vol.  1,  pp.  166, 167,  Bost.  Ed 
\  See  Stuart's  View  of  Society,  particularly -book  1,  chap.  2,  sec.  4 
mid  5. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  341 

checked  by  considerations  of  interest  or  calculations  of  remote 
consequences,  have  ever  prompted  to  embrace  with  eagerness 
even  the  wildest  and  most  destructive  schemes  of  emancipa- 
tion, has  been  in  a  most  peculiar  and  eminent  degree  indebted 
to  slavery,  for  that  very  elevation  in  society  which  first  raised 
her  to  an  equality  with  man.  We  will  not  stop  here  to  in- 
vestigate the  advantages  resulting  from  the  ameliorated  con- 
dition of  woman  :  her  immense  influence  on  the  destiny  of 
our  race  is  acknowledged  by  all :  upon  her  must  ever  devolve, 
in  a  peculiar  degree,  the  duty  of  rearing  into  manhood  a  crea- 
ture, in  its  infancy  the  frailest  and  feeblest  which  Heaven  has 
made — of  forming  the  plastic  mind — of  training  the  igno- 
rance and  imbecility  of  infancy  into  virtue  and  efficiency. 
There  is,  perhaps,  no  moral  power,  the  magnitude  of  which 
swells  so  far  beyond  the  grasp  of  calculation,  as  the  influence 
of  the  female  character  on  the  virtues  and  happiness  of  man- 
kind :  it  is  so  searching,  so  jersatile,  so  multifarious,  and  so 
universal  :  it  turns  on  us  like  the  eye  of  a  beautiful  portrait, 
wherever  we  take  our  position  ;  it  bears  upon  us  in  such  an 
infinite  variety  of  points,  on  our  instincts,  our  passions,  our 
vanity,  our  tastes,  and  our  necessities  ;  above  all,  on  the  first 
impressions  of  education  and  the  associations  of  infancy."  The 
rule  which  woman  should  act  in  the  great  drama  of  life,  is 
truly  an  important  and  an  indispensable  one ;  it  must  and 
will  be  acted,  and  that  too,  either  for  our  weal  or  woe  :  all 
must  wish  then,  that  she  should  be  guided  by  virtue,  intelli- 
gence, and  the  purest  affection  ;  which  can  only  be  secured 
by  elevating,  honoring,  and  loving  her,  in  whose  career  we 
feel  so  deep  an  interest. 

We  have  thus  traced  out  the  origin  and  progress  of  slav- 
ery, and  pointed  out  its  effects  in  promoting  the  civilization 
of  mankind.     We  should  next  proceed  to  an  investigation  of 
those  causes,  of  a  general  character,  which  have  a  tendency, 
29* 


342  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

in  the  progress  of  society,  gradually  to  remove  and  extinguish, 
slavery  ;  but  these  we  shall  have  such  frequent  opportunities 
of  noticing  in  the  sequel,  while  discussing  various  schemes  of 
abolition  that  have  been  proposed,  that  we  have  determined 
to  omit  their  separate  consideration. 

We  shall  now  proceed  to  inquire  into  the  origin  of  slavery 
in  the  United  States. 

It  is  well  known  to  all,  at  all  conversant  with  the  history 
of  our  country,  that  negro  slavery  in  the  United  States,  the 
West  India  Islands,  and  South  America,  was  originally  de- 
rived from  the  African  slave  trade,  by  which  the  African 
negro  was  torn  from  his  home,  and  transferred  to  the  western 
hemisphere,  to  live  out  his  days  in  bondage  ;  we  shall  briefly 
advert — First,  to  the'origin  and  progress  of  this  trade — Se- 
condly, to  its  effects  on  Africa  ;  and  lastly,  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  part  which  the  United  States  have  taken  in  this 
traffic,  and  the  share  of  responsibility  which  must  be  laid  at 
their  door. 

1.  Origin  and  Progress  of  the  African  Slave  Trade. — 
This  trade,  which  seems  so  shocking  to  the  feelings  of  man- 
kind, dates  its  origin  as  far  back  as  the  year  1442  :  Antony 
Gonzales,  a  Portuguese  mariner,  while  exploring  the  coast  of 
Africa,  in  1440,  seized  some  Moors  near  Cape  Bojador,  and 
was  subsequently  forced  by  his  king,  the  celebrated  Prince 
Henry,  of  Portugal,  to  carry  them  back  to  Africa  :  he  carried 
them  to  Rio  del  Oro,  and  received  from  the  Moors  in  ex- 
change, ten  blacks  and  a  quantity  of  gold  dust,  with  which  he 
returned  to  Lisbon;  and  this,  which  occurred  in  1442,  was  the 
simple  beginning  of  that  extensive  trade  in  human  flesh, 
which  has  given  so  singular  an  aspect  to  the  texture  of  our 
population,  and  which  has  and  will  continue  to  influence  the 
character  and  destiny  of  the  greatest  portion  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  two  Americas. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  343 

"  The  success  of  Gonzales  not  only  awakened  the  admira- 
tion, but  stimulated  the  avarice,  of  his  countrymen,  who,  in 
the  course  of  a  few  succeeding  years,  fitted  out  no  less  than 
thirty  seven  ships,  in  the  pursuit  of  the  same  gainful  traffic. 
So  early  as  the  year  1502,  the  Spaniards  began  to  employ  a 
few  negroes  in  the  mines  of  Hispaniola,  and  in  the  year  1517, 
the  Emperor,  Charles  V.,  granted  a  patent  to  certain  persons, 
for  the  exclusive  supply  of  4,000  negroes  annually,  to  the 
islands  of  Ilispaniola,  Cuba,  Jamaica,  and  Puerto  Rico."* 

African  slaves  were  first  imported  into  this  country  in  1620, 
more  than  a  century  after  their  introduction  into  the  West 
Indies.  It  seems  that,  in  the  year  1620,  the  trade  to  Virgi- 
nia was  thrown  open  to  all  nations,  and  a  Dutch  vessel  avail- 
ing itself  of  the  commercial  liberty  which  prevailed,  brought 
into  James  River  twenty  Africans,  who  were  immediately 
purchased  as  slaves  ;  "  and  as  that  hardy  race,"  says  Robert- 
son, "  was  found  more  capable  of  enduring  fatigue  under  a 
sultry  climate  than  Europeans,  their  number  has  been  increas- 
ed by  continual  importations."!  Slavery  was  thus  introduced 
into  the  New  World,  and  its  fertile. soil  and  extensive  territory 
its  sparse  population  and  warm  climate,  so  congenial  to  the 
African  constitution,  soon  gave  a  powerful  stimulus  to  the 
trade,  and  drew  towards  it  the  mercantile  enterprise  of  every 
commercial  nation  of  Europe.  England  being  the  most  com- 
mercial of  European  nations,  naturally  engrossed  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  trade  ;  Bryant  Edwards  says,  that  from  the  year 
1680  to  1786,  there  were  imported  into  the  British  posses- 
sions alone,  2,130,000  slaves — making  an  average  annual 
importation  of  more  than  20,000. 

The  annual  importation  into  the  two  Americas  from  all 

*  See  Bryant  Edward's  "West  Indies,  vol.  3,  p.  238,  and  the  sequel, 
f  See  upon  this  subject  2d  chapter  of  the  first  volume  of  Marshall's 
Life  of  Washington,  and  Robertson's  Virginia. 


344  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

quarters,  has  frequently  transcended  100,000  !  But  our 
limits  will  not  allow  us  to  enter  more  fully  into  this  subject  ; 
and,  therefore,  we  must  content  ourselves  by  calling  the  at- 
tention of  the  reader  to  the  9th  section  of  Walsh's  Appeal  on 
the  subject  of  negro  slavery  and  the  slave  trade,  in  which  he 
has  brought  together  all  the  information  upon  this  subject  up 
to  the  time  at  which  he  wrote  (1819.) 

We  will  now  proceed  to  consider,  2d — The  effects  of  the 
Slave  Trade  an  the  condition  of  Africa — and  first,  will  brief- 
ly advert  to  the  supposed  advantages.  It  is  well  known  that 
almost  the  whole  of  Africa  exists  in  a  barbarous  state — only 
one  or  two  removes  above  the  Indian  of  America.  At  the 
commencement  of  the  slave  trade,  slavery,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  was  established  throughout  Africa,  and  had  led  on  to 
great  mitigation  of  the  cruel  practices  of  war  ;  but  still,  in 
consequence  of  the  limited  demand  for  slaves  under  their  very 
rude  system  of  agriculture,  the  prisoner  of  war  was  frequently 
put  to  death. 

So  soon,  however,  as  the  slave  trade  was  established,  great 
care  was  taken  in  the  preservation  of  the  lives  of  prisoners,  in 
consequence  of  the  great  demand  for  them  occasioned  by  the 
slave  traffic  ;  so  that,  although  an  extension  has  been  given 
to  the  system  of  slavery,  many  lives  are  sitpposed  to  have 
been  saved  by  it. 

Again  :  it  has  been  contended  that  the  slave  trade,  by 
giving  a  value  to  the  African  negro  which  would  not  otherwise 
have  been  attached  to  him,  has  produced  much  more  mild- 
ness and  kindness  in  the  treatment  of  .slaves  in  Africa  ;  that 
the  utmost  care  is  now  taken  in  the  rearing  of  children,  and, 
consequently,  that  although  Africa  has  lost  many  of  her 
inhabitants  from  this  cause,  yet  a  stimulus  has  thereby  been 
given  to  population,  which  has  in  some  measure  made  up  the 
loss. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  345 

"  Africa,"  says  Malthus,  "  has  been  at  all  times  the  princi- 
pal mart  of  slaves.  The  drains  of  its  population  in  this  way 
have  been  great  and  constant,  particularly  since  their  intro- 
duction into  the  European  colonies  ;  but,  perhaps,  as  Doctor 
Franklin  observes,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  the  gap  that 
has  been  made  by  a  hundred  years'  exportation  of  negroes, 
which  has  blackened  half  America."*  Lastly,  it  has  been  urg- 
ed, and  with  great  apparent  justness,  that  the  slave  trade  has 
contributed  greatly  to  the  civilization  of  a  large  portion  of 
the  African  population  ;  thaf,  by  transportation  to  the  west- 
ern world,  they  have  been  placed  in  contact  with  the  civilized 
white,  and  have  been  greatly  benefitted  by  the  change  ;  that 
the  system  of  slavery  throughout  our  continent  and  the 
islands,  is  much  less  cruel  than  in  Africa ;  that  there  nowhere 
prevails  in  America,  the  horrid  practice  of  sacrificing  the  slave 
on  the  death  of  his  master,  in  order  that  he  may  be  well 
attended  in  another  world  ;  a  practice  which  all  travellers  in 
Africa  assert  to  be  extremely  common  in  many  nations  ;  and 
finally,  that  the  climate  of  our  temperate  and  torrid  zones,  is 
much  more  suitable  to  the  African  constitution,  than  even 
their  own  climate  ;  and,  consequently,  that  the  physical  con- 
dition of  the  race  has  greatly  improved  by  the  transplanta- 
tion. 

There  is  certainly  much  truth  in  the  above  assertions  ;  but 
still  we  cannot  agree  that  the  advantages  of  Africa  from  the 
slave  trade,  have  preponderated  over  the  disadvantages.  Al- 
though wars  have  been  made  more  mild  by  the  trade,  yet 
they  have  been  made  much  more  frequent :  an  additional 
and  powerful  motive  for  strife  has  been  furnished.  Countries 
have  been  overrun,  and  cities  pillaged,  mainly  with  a  view  of 
procuring  slaves  for  the  slave  dealer.  Brougham  likens  the 

*  See  Malthus  on  population,  vol.  1,  page  179,  Georgetown  Edi- 
tion, 


346  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

operation  of  the  slave  trade  in  this  respect,  to  the  effect  which 
the  different  menageries  in  the  world  and  the  consequent  de- 
mand for  wild  beasts,  have  produced  on  the  inferior  animals 
of  Africa.  They  are  now  taken  alive,  instead  of  being  killed 
as  formerly  ;  but  they  are  certainly  more  hunted  and  more 
harassed  than  if  no  foreign  demand  existed  for  them.  The 
unsettled  state  of  Africa,  caused  by  the  slave  trade,  is  most 
undoubtedly  unfavorable  to  the  progress  of  civilization  in  that 
extensive  region.  In  proof  of  the  fatal  effects  of  the  slave 
trade  on  the  peace,  order,  and  civilization  of  Africa,  Mr.  Wil- 
berforce  asserted,  and  his  assertion  is  upheld  by  the  state- 
ments of  all  travellers  who  have  penetrated  far  into  the  inte- 
rior, that  while  in  every  region  the  sea  coast  and  the  banks  of 
navigable  rivers,  those  districts  which,  from  their  situation, 
had  most  intercourse  with  civilized  nations,  were  found  to  be 
most  civilized  and  cultivated  ;  the  effects  of  the  slave  trade 
had  been  such  in  Africa,  that  those  parts  of  the  coast  which 
had  been  the  seats  of  the  longest  and  closest  intercourse  with 
European  nations  in  carrying  on  a  flourishing  slave  trade, 
were  far  inferior  in  civilization  and  knowledge  to  many  tracts 
of  the  interior  country,  where  the  face  of  the  white  man  had 
never  been  seen  ;  and  thus  has  the  slave  trade  been  able  to 
reverse  the  ordinary  effects  of  Christianity  and  Mahomedan- 
ism,  and  to  cause  the  latter  to  be  the  instructor  and  enlight- 
ener  of  mankind,  while  the  former  left  them  under  the  undis- 
turbed or  rather  increased  influence  of  all  their  native  super- 
stitions.* 

Again  :  the  condition  of  the  negro  during  what  is  called 
the  middle  passage,  is  allowed  by  all  to  be  wretched  in  the 
extreme.  The  slave  traders  are  too  often  tempted  to  take  on 

*  It  is  proper  to  state  here,  that  Parke  ascribes  the  superior  condi- 
tion of  the  interior  districts  of  Africa,  principally  to  a  more  healthy 
climate. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  347 

board  more  slaves  than  can  be  conveniently  carried ;  they  are 
then  stored  away  in  much  too  narrow  space,  and  left  to  all 
the  horrors  and  privations  incident  to  a  voyage  through  trop- 
ical seas.  The  Edinburgh  Review  asserts,  that  about  seven- 
teen in  a  hundred  died  generally  during  the  passage,  and 
about  thirty-three  afterwards  in  the  seasoning — making  the 
loss  of  the  negroes  exported,  rise  to  the  frightful  amount  of  50 
per  cent.  It  has  been  further  asserted,  that  the  treatment  of 
the  negroes  after  importation,  has  been  generally  so  cruel,  as 
that  the  population  has  not,  by  its  procreative  energies,  kept 
up  its  numbers  in  any  of  the  West  India  islands  ;  that  it 
has  been  cheaper  for  the  West  Indian  to  work  out  his  ne- 
groes, and  trust  to  the  slave  trade  for  a  supply,  than  to  raise 
them  in  the  islands  where  provisions  are  so  dear.  We  be- 
lieve the  accounts  of  the  ill  treatment  of  slaves  in  the  West 
Indies  have  been  greatly  exaggerated,  and  have  no  doubt  that 
their  condition  has  generally  been  better  than  in  Africa  ;  but 
still  it  is  true,  that  breeding  has  been  discouraged  generally 
where  the  slave  trade  was  in  full  operation  ;  and  children 
not  being  allowed  full  attention  from  the  mother,  have  too 
frequently  died  from  the  want  of  care.  And  this  is  most 
probably  a  principal  reason  of  the  slow  increase  of  the  slaves 
in  the  West  Indies,  by  procreation.*  Upon  the  whole,  then, 
we  must  come  to  the  conclusion,  that  the  slave  trade  has  been 
disadvantageous  to  Africa ;  has  caused  a  violation  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  humanity,  and  given  rise  to  much  suffering  and  to 
considerable  destruction  of  human  life.f  Judging  by  its  ef- 

*  Another  cause  of  the  difficulty  of  keeping  up  the  slave  population 
of  the  "West  Indies,  is  the  great  disproportion  between  the  sexes 
among  those  imported — the  males  being  greatly  more  numerous  than 
the  females. 

t  "We  do  not  by  any  means  -wish  to  be  understood  as  contending 
that  negro  slavery  in  our  hemisphere,  has  lessened  the  number  of  ne- 


348  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

fects,  we  must  condemn  it,  and  consequently,  agree  that  slav- 
ery in  our  hemisphere  was  based  upon  injustice  in  the  first 
instance. 

But  we  believe  that  there  are  many  circumstances  of  an 
alleviating  character,  which  form  at  least,  a  strong  apology  for 
the  slave  trade,  thus  :  slavery  exists  throughout  the  whole  of 
Africa  ;  the  slave  must  necessarily  be  looked  upon  in  the  light 
of  property,  and  subject  to  bargain,  sale,  and  removal,  as  all 
kinds  of  moveable  property  are.  The  Adscripti  Glebce,  or 
slaves  attached  to  the  soil,  and  not  suffered  to  be  removed, 
fare  the  worst.  When  they  multiply  too  greatly  for  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  soil  on  which  they  are  situated,  their  subsistence 
is  scanty,  and  their  condition  is  miserable.  When  not  in  pro- 
portion to  the  extent  of  the  soil,  then  they  are  sure  to  be 
overworked,  as  there  is  a  deficiency  of  labor.  It  is  cer- 
tainly best,  therefore,  if  slavery  exists,  at  all,  that  buying 
and  selling  should  be  allowed,  and  upon  this  principle  the 
middle  passage  certainly  constitutes  the  greatest  objection  to 
the  slave  trade,  when  those  alone  are  imported  who  were 
slaves  in  Africa. 

But  again  :  it  is  extremely  difficult,  in  all  questions  of  mo- 
rality, to  say,  how  far  ignorance,  conscientious  opinions,  and 
concomitant  circumstances,  may  atone  for  acts  extremely 
hurtful  and  improper  in  themselves  ;  we  all  agree  that  these 
.produce  great  modifications.  The  bigot  who  burns  his  relig- 
ious enemy  at  the  stake,  and  conscientiously  believes  that  he 
has  done  his  God  a  service,  and  the  North  American  Indian, 
who  torments  with  every  refinement  of  cruelty  the  prisoner 
who  has  unfortunately  fallen  into  his  hands,  and  believes  that 

groes  throughout  the  world.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  nothing  more 
true,  than  that  the  number  has  greatly  increased  by  it.  We  only  al- 
lude to  the  destruction  of  life  in  the  Middle  Passage  and  the  Season- 
ing. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  349 

the  Great  Spirit  applauds  him,  and  that  the  blood  of  his  fath- 
ers calls  for  it,  surely  do  not  commit  the  same  amount  of  sin 
as  the  perfectly  enlightened  statesman,  who  should  do  the 
same  things  from  policy,  knowing  them  to  be  wrong.  In  like 
manner,  the  slave  trade,  at  its  origin,  can  lay  claim  to  the 
same  sort  of  apology,  from  the  condition  of  the  world  when  it 
arose,  and  the  peculiar  circumstances  which  generated  it. 
Slavery  was  then  common  throughout  almost  every  country 
of  Europe. 

Indeed,  the  slaves  under  the  appellation  of  main  mortables,* 
in  France,  were  never  liberated  until  the  revolution  in  1789. 
The  public  law  of  Europe,  too,  justified  the  killing  or  enslav- 
ing of  the  prisoner,  at  the  option  of  the  captor.  Under  these 
circumstances,  we  are  not  to  wonder  that  the 'slave  trade,  so 
far  from  exciting  the  horrors  of  mankind,  as  now,  actually 
commanded  the  admiration  of  Europe.  Gonzales,  we  have 
just  seen,  during  the  reign  of  the  celebrated  Prince  Henry,  in 
1442,  brought  the  first  negro  slaves  into  Lisbon,  and  the  deed 
excited  the  admiration  of  all  :  again,  three  years  afterwards, 
Dinis  Fernandez,  a  citizen  of  Lisbon,  and  an  Esquire  to  the 
King  Don  John,  captured  four  negroes  on  the  coast  of  Africa 
and  brought  them  into  Lisbon  ;  and  the  Portuguese  historian, 
Barras,  "eulogizes  Dinis,"  says  Walsh,  in  his  notices  of 
Brazil,  "  that  he  did  not  stop  at  the  time,  to  make  forays  into 
the  country,  and  capture  more  slaves -on  his  own  account,  but 
brought  those  he  had  caught  back  to  his  master,  who  was 
mightily  pleased,  not  only  with  the  discoveries  he  had  made, 
but  with  the  people  he  had  carried  with  him,  which  had  not 
been  delivered  from  the  hands  of  the  Moors  like  the  other  ne- 

*  It  is  a  singular  fact,  that  the  slaves  belonging  to  the  Church  were 
the  last  liberated — a  striking  illustration  of  the  feeble  effects  of  religion 
and  philanthropy,  when  arrayed  against  interest. 

30 


350  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

groes,  -which  had  up  to  that  time  come  into  the  kingdom,  but 
had  been  caught  on  their  own  soil." 

The  famous  Bartholomew  de  Las  Casas,  Bishop  of  Chiapi, 
who  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  to  recommend  the  importa- 
tion of  Africans  into  the  New  World,  was  a  man  of  the  mild- 
est and  most  philanthropic  temper,  yet  he  never  doubted  at 
all  the  right  to  enslave  Africans,  though  he  was  the  zealous 
advocate  and  protector  of  the  Indian.  "  While  he  contended, 
says  Robertson,  "for  the  liberty  of  people  born  in  one  quar- 
ter of  the  globe,  he  labored  to  enslave  the  inhabitants  of 
another  region  ;  and  in  the  warmth  of  his  zeal  to  sa.ve  the 
Americans  from  the  yoke,  pronounced  it  to  be  lawful  and  ex- 
pedient to  impose  one  still  heavier  upon  the  Africans."* 

We  have  already  seen  that  Charles  V.  granted  a  com- 
mission to  a  company  to  supply  his  American  possessions 
with  4,000  slaves  per  annum.  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  like- 
wise had  permitted  the  trade  before  him. 

John  Hawkins  was  the  first  Englishman  who  embarked  in 
the  trade,  and  he  seems  by  his  daring  and  enterprise  in  the 
business,  to  have  greatly  pleased  his  sovereign,  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, who  so  far  from  disgracing  him,  conferred  on  him  the 
honors  of  knighthood,  and  made  him  treasurer  of  the  navy.f 
Elizabeth,  James  I.,  Charles  I.  and  II.,  were  all  in  the  habit  of 
chartering  companies  to  carry  on  the  trade.  No  scruples  of 
conscience  seem  ever  to  have  disturbed  the  quiet  of  these  roy- 
al personages,  or  of  the  agents  whom  they  employed.  The 
last  chartered  company  was  called  the  Royal  African  company,- 
and  had  among  the  subscribers,  the  King,  (Charles  II.)  the 
Duke  of  York,  his  brother,  and  many  other  persons  of  high 
rank  and  quality  .J  In  fact,  women,  the  most  virtuous  and 

*  Robertson's  America. 

t  See  Edward's  West  Indies,  vol.  3,  page  242. 

%  Edward's  West  Indies,  vol.  2,  pp.  247-8. 

| 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  351 

humane,  were  often  subscribers  to  this  kind  of  stock,  and 
seem  never  to  have  reflected  upon  the  injustice  and  iniquity 
of  the  traffic,  which  has  so  long  scandalized  civilized  Europe. 
It  would  indeed  be  a  most  difficult  question  in  casuistry,  to 
determine  the  amount  of  sin  and  wickedness  committed  by 
the  various  governments  of  Europe,  in  sanctioning  a  trade 
which  the  condition  of  Europe,  Africa,  and  America,  and  all 
the  habits  and  practices  of  the  day,  seemed  so  completely  to 
justify. 

We  shall  now  proceed,  3dly,  to  the  consideration  of  the 
share  of  responsibility  which  attaches  to  the  United  States  in 
the  commission  of  the  original  sin  by  which  slavery  was  first 
introduced  into  this  country. — The  colonies,  being  under  the 
control  and  guidance  of  another  country,  were  of  course  re- 
sponsible for  no  commercial  acts  and  regulations  in  which 
they  had  no  share  whatever.  The  slave  trade,  on  the  part  of 
Great  Britain,  commenced  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  who, 
personally,  took  a  share  in  it.  The  colonies  did  not  then  ex- 
ist. It  was  encouraged  in  the  successive  reigns  of  Charles  I. 
and  II.  and  James  II.;  and  William  III.  outdid  them  all : 
with  Lord  Sumersforhis  minister,  he  declared  the  slave  trade 
to  be  highly  beneficial  to  the  nation.  The  colonies,  all  this 
time,  took  no  share  in  it  themselves,  merely  purchasing  what 
the  British  merchants  brought  them,  and  doing  therein  what 
the  British  government  invited  them  to  do,  by  every  means 
in  their  power.  And  now  let  us  see  who  it  was  that  first 
marked  it  with  disapprobation,  and  sought  to  confine  it  with- 
in narrow  bounds.  The  colonies  began  in  1760.  South- 
Carolina,  a  British  colony,  passed  an  act  to  prohibit  further 
importation  ;  but  Great  Britain  rejected  this  act  with  indig- 
nation, and  declared  that  the  slave  trade  was  beneficial  and 
necessary  to  the  mother  country.  The  governors  of  the  colo- 
nies had  positive  orders  to  sanction  no  law  enacted  against  the 


352  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

slave  trade.  In  Jamaica,  in  the  year  1765,  £2^attempf)  was 
made  to  abolish  the  trade  to  that  island.  The  governor  de- 
clared that  his  instructions  would  never  allow  him  to  sign  the 
bill.  It  was  tried  again  on  the  same  island  in  1774,  but 
Great  Britain,  by  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth,  president  of  the 
board,  answered  :  "  We  cannot  allow  the  colonies  to  check  or 
discourage  in  any  degree  a  traffic  so  beneficial  to  the  nation." 
The  above  historical  account  we  have  taken  from  a  British 
writer.  (Barnham's  Observations  on  the  Abolition  of  Negro 
Slavery.) 

Among  all  the  colonies,  none  seem  to  be  more  eager  and 
more  pressing  for  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  than  Virgi- 
nia— in  which  State  the  citizens,  wonderful  to  relate,  seem 
now  more  remorseful  and  conscience-stricken  than  any  where 
else  in  the  whole  southern  country.  Judge  Tucker,  in  his 
Notes  on  Blackstone's  Commentaries,  has  collected  a  list  of 
no  less  than  twenty-three  acts  imposing  duties  on  slaves, 
which  occur  in  the  compilation  of  Virginia  laws.  The  first 
bears  date  as  far  back  as  1699  ;  and  the  real  design  of  all  of 
them  was  not  revenue,  but  the  repression  of  the  importation. 
In  1772,  most  of  the  duties  previously  imposed  were  re-enact- 
ed, and  the  Assembly  transmitted,  at  the  same  time,  a  peti- 
tion to  the  throne,  which,  as  Mr.  Walsh  most  justly  observes, 
speaks  almost  all  that  could  be  desired,  for  the  confusion  of 
our  slanderers.  The  following  are  extracts  :  "  We  are  en- 
couraged to  look  up  to  the  throne  and  implore  your  majesty's 
paternal  assistance  in  averting  a  calamity  of  a  most  alarming 
nature."  "  The  importation  of  slaves,  into  the  colonies  from 
the  coast  of  Africa,  hath  long  been  considered  a  trade  of  great 
inhumanity,  and,  under  its  present  encouragement,  we  have 
too  much  reason  to  fear,  will  endanger  the  very  existence  of 
your  Majesty's  American- dominions." 

"  Deeply  impressed  with  these  sentiments,  we  most  hum- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  353 

bly  beseech  your  majesty  to  remove  all  those  restraints  on 
your  majesty's  governors  of  this  colony  which  inhibit  their 
assenting  to  such  laws  as  might  check  so  very  pernicious  a 
commerce."  The  petition,  of  course,  was  unavailing.  The 
first  Assembly  which  met  in  Virginia,  after  the  adoption  of 
her  constitution,  prohibited  the  traffic  ;  and  the  "  inhuman 
use  of  the  royal  negative"  against  the  action  of  the  colony 
upon  this  subject,  is  enumerated  in  the  first  clause  of  the  first 
Virginia  constitution,  as  a  reason  of  the  separation  from  the 
mother  country. 

The  action  of  the  United  States  Government  likewise  upon 
the  slave  trade,  seems  to  have  been  as  deeply  and  efficient  as 
could  possibly  have  been  expected  from  a  government  neces- 
sarily placed  under  great  restraint  and  limitation. 

Not  being  able  to  enter  into  the  details,   we  quote,  with 
great  pleasure,  the  following  remark  of  Mr.  Walsh,  who,  with 
great  indefatigable  zeal   and  industry,  has   collected  all  the 
important  information  on  the  subject  of  the  slave  trade,  and 
furnished  the  world  with  a  complete  and  triumphant  vindica. 
tion  of  the  United  States,    against  the  taunts  and  illiberal 
insinuations  of  British  writers.     "  It  is  seen,"  says  Mr.  Walsh 
"  by  the  foregoing  abstract,  that  federal  America  interdicted 
the  trade  from  her  ports,  thirteen  years  before  Great  Britain  ; 
that  she  made  it  punishable  as  a  crime  seven  years  before  ; 
that  she  had  fixed  four  years  sooner  the  period  of  non-impor- 
tation— which  period  was  earlier  than  that  determined  upon 
by  Great  Britain  for  her  colonies.     We  ought  not  to  overlook 
the  circumstance,  that  these  measures  were  taken  by  a  Legis- 
lature composed  in  considerable  part  of  the  representatives  of 
Slaveholding  States  ;   slaveholders  themselves,    in  whom,  of 
course,  according  to  the  Edinburgh  Review,   'conscience  had 
suspended  its  functions,'    and    'justice,  gentleness  and  pity 
were  extinguished.'     In  truth,  the  representatives  from  our 
30* 


35£  PROFESSOR  DEW  £)N  SLAVERY. 

Southern  States  have  been  foremost  in  testifying  their  abhor- 
rence of  the  traffic."*  Are  we  not  then  fully  justified,  from 
a  historical  review  of  the  part  which  the  colonists  took,  before 
and  after  the  independence,  in  relation  to  the  slave  trade,  in 
asserting  that  slavery  was  forced  upon  them,  and  the  slave 
trade  continued  contrary  to  their  wishes  ?  If  ever  a  nation 
stood  justified  before  heaven,  in  regard  to  an  evil,  which 
had  become  interwoven  with  her  social  system,  is  not  that 
country  ours  ?  Are  not  our  hands  unpolluted  with  the  origi- 
nal sin,  and  did  we  not  wish  them  clean  of  the  contagion  the 
moment  our  independent  existence  was  established  ?  Where 
is  the  stain  that  rests  upon  our  escutcheon  ?  There  is  none  ! 
United  America  has  done  her  duty,  and  Virginia  has  the 
honor  of  taking  the  lead  of  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade, 
whose  example  has  been  so  tardily  and  reluctantly  follow- 
ed by  the  civilized  nations  of  Europe.  Virginia,  therefore, 
especially,  has  nothing  to  reproach  herself  with — "  the  still 
small  voice  of  conscience"  can  never  disturb  her  quiet.  She 
truly  stands  upon  this  subject,  like  the  Chevalier  Bayard — 
"  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche? 

We  have  now  finished  the  first  principal  division  of  our 
subject — in  which  we  have  treated,  we  hope  satisfactorily,  of 
the  origin  of  slavery  in  ancient  and  modern  times,  and  have 
closed  with  a  consideration  of  the  slave  trade,  by  which  slav- 
ery has  been  introduced  into  the  United  States.  We  hope 
that  this  preliminary  discussion  will  not  be  considered  inap- 
propriate to  our  main  subject.  We  have  considered  it  indis- 
pensably necessary  to  point  out  the  true  sources  of  slavery, 
and  the  principles  upon  which  it  rests, 'in  order  that  we  might 
appreciate  fully  the  value  of  those  arguments  based  upon  the 
principles  that  "  all  men  are  born  equal" — that  "  slavery  in 
the  abstract  is  wrong" — that  "  the  slave  has  a  natural  right  to 
*  See  "Walsh's  Appeal,  2d  edition,  page  323. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  355 

regain  his  liberty,"  &c.  &c. — all  of  which  doctrines  were  most 
pompously  and  ostentatiously  put  forth  by  some  of  the  abo- 
litionists in  the  Virginia  Legislature.  No  set  of  legislators 
ever  have,  or  ever  can,  legislate  upon  purely  abstract  princi- 
ples, entirely  independent  of  circumstances,  without  the  ruin 
of  the  body  politic,  which  should  have  the  misfortune  to  be 
under  the  guidance  of  such  quackery.  Well  and  philosophi- 
cally has  Burke  remarked,  that  circumstances  give  in  reality 
to  every  political  principle  its  distinguishing  color  and  dis- 
criminating effect.  The  circumstances  are  what  render  every 
political  scheme  beneficial  or  noxious  to  mankind,  and  we 
cannot  stand  forward  and  give  praise  or  blame  to  anything 
which  relates  to  human  actions  and  human  concerns,  on  a 
simple  view  of  the  object  as  it  stands,  stript  of  every  relation, 
in  all  the  nakedness  and  solitude  of  metaphysical  abstraction. 
The- historical  view  which  we  have  given  of  the  origin  and 
progress  of  slavery,  shows  most  conclusively  that  something 
else  is  requisite  to  convert  slavery  into  freedom,  than  the  mere 
enunciation  of  abstract  truths,  divested  of  all  adventitious  cir- 
cumstances and  relations.  We  shall  now  proceed  to  the 
second  great  division  of  our  subject,  and  inquire  seriously  and 
fairly,  whether  there  be  any  means  by  which  we  may  get  rid 
of  slavery. 

//.  Plans  for  the  Abolition  of  Negro  Slavery. — Under 
this  head  we  will  examine  first,  those  schemes  which  propose 
abolition  and  deportation ;  and  secondly,  those  which  contem- 
plate emancipation  without  deportation. 

1st.  Emancipation  and  Deportation. — In  the  late  Virginia 
Legislature,  where  the  subject  of  slavery  underwent  the  most 
thorough  discussion,  all  seemed  to  be  perfectly  agreed  in  the 
necessity  of  removal  in  case  of  emancipation.  Several  mem- 
bers from  the  lower  counties,  which  are  deeply  interested  in 
this  question,  seemed  to  be  sanguine  in  their  anticipations  of 


356  PROFESSOR  DEW  OK  SLAVERY. 

the  final  success  of  some  project  of  emancipation  and  depor- 
tation to  Africa,  the  original  home  of  the  negro.  "  Let  us 
translate  them,"  said  one  of  the  most  respected  and  able 
members  of  the  Legislature,  (Gen.  Broadnax,)  "  to  those 
realms  from  which,  in  evil  limes,  under  inauspicious  influ- 
ences, their  fathers  were  unfortunately  abducted.  Mr.  Speaker, 
the  idea  of  restoring  these  people  to  the  region  in  which  na- 
ture had  planted  them,  and  to  whose  climate  she  had  fitted 
their  constitutions — the  idea  of  benefitting,  not  only  our  con- 
dition and  their  condition,  by  the  removal,  but  making  them 
the  means  of  carrying  back  to  a  great  continent,  lost  in  the 
profoundest  depths  of  savage  barbarity,  unconscious  of  the  ex- 
istence even  of  the  God  who  created  them,  not  only  the  arts 
and  comforts,  and  multiplied  advantages  of  civilized  life,  but 
what  is  of  more  value  than  all,  a  knowledge  of  true  religion — 
intelligence  of  a  Redeemer — is  one  of  the  grandest  and  no- 
blest, one  of  the  most  expansive  and  glorious  ideas  which  ever 
entered  into  the  imagination  of  man.  The  conception,  wheth- 
er to  the  philosopher,  the  statesman,  the  philanthropist,  or 
the  Christian,  of  rearing  up  a  colony  which  is  to  be  the  nu- 
cleus around  which  future  emigration  will  concentre,  and  open 
all  Africa  to  civilization,  and  commerce,  and  science,  and  arts, 
and  religion — when  Ethiopia  shall  stretch  out  her  hands,  in- 
deed, is  one  which  warms  the  heart  with  delight."  (Speech 
of  Gen.  Broadnax,  of  Dinwiddie,  pp.  36  and  37.)  We  fear 
that  this  splendid  vision,  the  creation  of  a  brilliant  imagina- 
tion, influenced  by  the  pure  feelings  of  a  philanthropic  and 
generous  heart,  is  destined  to  vanish  at  the  severe  touch  of 
analysis.  Fortunately  for  reason  and  common  sense,  all  these 
projects  of  deportation  may  be  subjected  to  the  most  rigid 
and  accurate  calculations,  which  are  amply  sufficient  to  dispel 
all  doubt,  even  in  the  minds  of  the  most  sanguine,  as  to  their 
practicability. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  357 

We  take  it  for  granted,  that  the  right  of  the  owner  to  his 
slave  is  to  be  respected,  and,  consequently,  that  he  is  not  re- 
quired to  emancipate  him,  unless  his  full  value  is  paid  by  the 
State.  Let  us,  then,  keeping  this  in  view,  proceed  to  the 
very  simple  calculation  of  the  expense  of  emancipation  and 
deportation  in  Virginia.  The  slaves,  by  the  last  census 
(1830,)  amounted  within  a  small  fraction  to  470,000  ;  the 
average  value  of  each  one  of  these  is,  $200  ;  consequently, 
the  whole  aggregate  value  of  the  slave  population  of  Virgi- 
nia, in  1830,  was  $94,000,000  ;  and  allowing  for  the  increase 
since,  we  cannot  err  far  in  putting  the  present  value  at  $100, 
000,000.  The  assessed  value  of  all  the  houses  and  lands  in 
the  State,  amounts  to  $206,000,000,  and  these  constitute  the 
material  items  in  the  wealth  of  the  State,  the  whole  personal 
property  besides  bearing  but  a  very  small  proportion  to  the  va- 
lue of  slaves,  lands,  and  houses.  Now,  do  not  these  very  simple 
statistics  speak  volumes  upon  this  subject  ?  It  is  gravely  recom- 
mended to  the  State  of  Virginia  to  give  up  a  species  of  property 
which  constitutes  nearly  one-third  of  the  wealth  of  the  whole 
State,  and  almost  one-half  of  that  of  Lower  Virginia,  and 
with  the  remaining  two-thirds  to  encounter  the  additional 
enormous  expense  of  transportation  and  colonization  on  the 
coast  of  Africa.  But  the  loss  of  $100,000,000  of  property  is 
scarcely  the  half  of  what  Virginia  would  lose,  if  the  immutable 
laws  of  nature  could  suffer  (as  fortunately  they  cannot)  this 
tremendous  scheme  of  colonization  to  be  carried  into  full  ef- 
fect. Is  it  not  population  which  makes  our  lands  and  houses 
valuable  ?  Why  are  lots  in  Paris  and  London  worth  more  than 
the  silver  dollars  which  it  might  take  to  cover  them  ?  Why 
are  lands  of  equal  fertility  in  England  and  France,  worth 
more  than  those  of  our  Nothern  States,  and  those  again  worth 
more  than  Southern  soils,  and  those  in  turn  worth  more  than 
the  soils  of  the  distant  West  ?  It  is  the  presence  or  absence 


!OR 


358  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLA  VERT. 

Q| 

of  population  which  alone  can  explain  the  fact.  It  is,  in  truth, 
the  slave  labor  in  Virginia  which  gives  value  to  her  soil  and 
her  habitations ;  take  away  this,  and  you  pull  down  the  Atlas 
that  upholds  the  whole  system ;  eject  from  the  State  the  whole 
slave  population,  and  we  risk  nothing  in  the  prediction,  that 
on  the  day  in  which  it  shall  be  accomplished,  the  worn  soils 
of  Virginia  would  not  bear  the  paltry  price  of  the  government 
lands  in  the  West,  and  the  Old  Dominion  will  be  a  "  waste 
howling  wilderness  ;" — "  the  grass  shall  be  seen  growing  in 
the  streets,  and  the  foxes  peeping  from  their  holes." 

But  the  favorers  of  this  scheme  say  they  do  not  contend 
for  the  sudden  emancipation  and  deportation  of  the  whole 
black  population  ;  they  would  send  off  only  the  increase,  and 
thereby  keep  down  the  population  to  its  present  amount, 
while  the  whites,  increasing  at  their  usual  rate,  would  finally 
become  relatively  so  numerous  as  to  render  the  presence  of 
the  blacks  among  us  for  ever  afterwards  entirely  harmless. 
This  scheme,  which  at  first,  to  the  unreflecting,  seems  plausi- 
ble, and  much  less  wild  than  the  project  of  sending  off  the 
whole,  is  nevertheless  impracticable  and  visionary,  as  we 
think  a  few  remarks  will  prove.  It  is  computed  that  the 
annual  increase  of  the  slaves  and  free  colored  population  of 
Virginia  is  about  six  thousand.  Let  us  first,  then,  make  a 
calculation  of  the  expense  of  purchase  and  transportation. 
At  $200  each,  the  six  thousand  will  amount  in  value  to  $1,- 
200,000.  At  $30  each,  for  transportation,  which  we  shall 
soon  see  is  too  little,  we  have  the  whole  expense  of  purchase 
and  transportation  $1,880,000,  an  expense  to  be  annually  in- 
curred by  Virginia  to  keep  down  her  black  population  to  its 
present  amount.  And  let  us  ask,  is  there  any  one  who  can 
seriously  argue  that  Virginia  can  incur  such  an  annual  ex- 
pense as  this  for  the  next  twenty-five  or  fifty  years,  until  the 
whites  have  multipled  so  greatly  upon  the  blacks,  as,  in  the 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  359 

opinion  of  the  alarmists,  for  ever  to  quiet  the  fears  of  the 
community  ?  Vain  and  delusive  hope,  if  any  were  ever  wild 
enough  to  entertain  it  !  Poor  old  Virginia  !  the  leader  of 
the  poverty  stricken  team,  which  have  been  for  years  so  heav- 
ily dragging  along  under  the  intolerable  burthen  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  must  inevitably  be  crushed,  whenever  this 
new  weight  is  imposed  on  her,  in  comparison  with  which  federal 
exactions  are  light  and  mild.  We  should  as  soon  expect  the 
Chamois,  the  hardy  rover  over  Alpine  regions,  by  his  unas- 
sisted strength  to  hurl  down  the  snowy  mantle  which  for  ages 
has  clothed  the  lofty  summit  of  Mount  Blanc,  as  that  Virgi- 
nia will  be  ever  able,  by  her  own  resources,  to  purchase  and 
colonize  on  the  coast  of  Africa  six  thousand  slaves  for  any 
number  of  years  in  succession. 

But  this  does  not  develope,  to  its  full  extent,  the  monstrous 
absurdity  of  this  scheme.  There  is  a  view  of  it  yet  to  be  tak- 
en, which  seems  not  to  have  struck  very  forcibly  any  of  the 
speakers  in  the  Virginia  Legislature,  but  which  appears  to  us, 
of  itself  perfectly  conclusive  against  this  whole  project.  We 
have  made  some  efforts  to  obtain  something  like  an  accurate 
account  of  the  number  of  negroes  every  year  carried  out  of  Vir- 
ginia to  the  South  and  Southwest.  We  have  not  been  enabled 
to  succeed  completely  ;  but  from  all  the  information  we  can 
obtain,  we  have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  that  upwards  of  6,000 
are  yearly  exported  to  other  States.  Virginia  is,  in  fact,  a 
negro  raising  State  for  other  States  ;  she  produces  enough  for 
her  own  supply,  and  six  thousand  for  sale.  Now,  suppose 
the  government  of  Virginia  enters  the  slave  market  resolved 
to  purchase  six  thousand  for  emancipation  and  deportation, 
is  it  not  evident  that  it  must  overbid  the  Southern  seeker,  and 
thus  take  the  very  slaves  who  would  have  gone  to  the  South  ? 
The  very  first  operation,  then,  of  this  scheme,  provided  slaves 
be  treated  as  property,  is  to  arrest  the  current  which  has 


__ 

PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

;*  been  hitherto  flowing  to  the  South,  and  to  accumulate  the 
evil  in  the  State.  As  sure  as  the  moon  in  her  transit  over 
the  meridian  arrests  the  current  which  is  gliding  to  the 
ocean,  so  sure  will  the  action  of  the  Virginia  government,  in 
an  attempt  to  emancipate  and  send  off  6,000  slaves,  stop 
those  who  are  annually  going  out  of  the  State ;  and  when 
6,000  are  sent  off  in  one  year,  (which  we  never  expect  to 
see,)  it  will  be  found,  on  investigation,  that  they  are  those 
who  would  have  been  sent  out  of  the  State  by  the  operation 
of  our  slave  trade,  and  to  the  utter  astonishment  and  confu- 
sion of  our  abolitionists,  the  bkck  population  will  be  found 
advancing  with  its  usual  rapidity — the  only  operation  of  the 
scheme  being  to  substitute  our  government,  alias,  ourselves,.a& 
purchasers,  instead  of  the  planters  of  the  South.  This  is  a 
view  which  every  legislator  in  the  State  should  take.  He 
should  beware,  lest  in  his  zeal  for  action,  this  efflux,  which  is 
now  so  salutary  to  the  State,  and  such  an  abundant  source  of 
wealth,  be  suddenly  dried  up,  and  all  the  evils  of  slavery  be 
increased  instead  of  diminished.  If  government  really -could 
enter  with  capital  and  zeal  enough  into  the  boundless  project, 
we  might  even  in  a  few  years  see  the  laws  of  nature  reversed, 
and  the  tide  of  slavery  flowing  from  the  South  in  Virginia,  to 
satisfy  the  philanthropic  demand  for  colonization.  The  only 
means  which  the  government  could  use  to  prevent  the  above 
described  effect,  would  be  either  arbitrarily  to  fix  the  price  of 
slaves  below  their  market  value,  which  would  be  a  clear  viola- 
tion of  the  right  of  property,  (which  we  shall  presently  notice,) 
or  to  excite  a  feeling  of  insecurity  and  apprehension  as  to  this 
kind  of  property,  and  thus  dispose  the  owner  to  part  with  it  at 
less  than  its  true  value ;  but  surely  no  statesman  would  open- 
ly avow  such  an  object,  although  it  must  be  confessed  that  some 
of  the  speakers,  even,  who  contended  that  slaves  should  ever 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.    .  301 

be  treated  as  property,  avowed  sentiments  which  were  calcula-v 
ted  to  produce  such  a  result. 

It  is  said,  however,  that  the  southern  market  will  at  all 
events  be  closed  against  us,  and  consequently,  that  the  pre- 
ceding argument  falls  to  the  ground.  To  this  we  answer,  that 
as  long  as  the  demand  to  the  south  exists,  the  supply  will  be 
furnished  in  some  way  or  other,  if  our  government  do  not  un- 
wisely tamper  with  the  subject.  Bryant  Edwards  has  said, 
that  "  an  attempt  to  prevent  the  introduction  of  slaves  into 
the  West  Indies  would  be  like  chaining  the  winds,  or  giving 
laws  to»the  ocean."  We  may  with  truth  affirm,  that  an  at- 
tempt to  prevent  a  circulation  of  this  kind  of  property  through 
the  slave-holding  States  of  our  confederacy,  would  be  equally 
if  not  more  impracticable.  But  there  is  a  most  striking  illus- 
tration of  this  now  exhibiting  before  our  eyes — the  South- 
ampton massacre  produced  great  excitement  and  apprehen- 
sion throughout  the  slave-holding  States,  and  two  of  them, 
hitherto  the  largest  purchasers  of  Virginia  slaves,  have  inter- 
dicted their  introduction  under  severe  penalties.  Many  in 
our  State  looked  forward  to  an  immediate  fall  in  the  price  of 
slaves  from  this  cause  ;  and  what  has  been  the  result  ?  Why, 
wonderful  to  relate,  Virginia  slaves  are  now  higher  than  they 
have  been  for  many  years  past ;  and  this  rise  in  price  has  no 
doubt  been  occasioned  by  the  number  of  southern  purchasers 
who  have  visited  our  State,  under  the  belief  that  Virginians 
had  been  frightened  into  a  determination  to  get  clear  of  their 
slaves  at  all  events  ;  "  and  from  an  artificial  demand  in  the 
slave  purchasing  States,  caused  by  an  apprehension  on  the 
part  of  the  farmers  of  those  States,  that  the  regular  supply  of 
slaves  would  speedily  be  discontinued  by  the  operation  of  their 
non-importation  regulations  ;"*  and  we  are,  consequently,  at 

*  From  Louisiana,  many  of  the  farmers  themselves  have  come  into 
31 


3C2  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

'    1»        •• 

^this  moment  exporting  slaves  more  rapidly,  through,  the  ope- 
r^ion  of  the  internal  slave  trade,  than  for  many  years  past. 

Let  us  now  examine  a  moment  into  the  object  proposed  to 
be  accomplished  by  this  scheme.  It  is  contended,  that  free 
labor  is  infinitely  superior  to  slave  labor  in  every  point  of 
view,  and  therefore  it  is  highly  desirable  to  exchange  the  lat- 
ter for  the  former,  and  that  this  will  be  gradually  accomplish- 
ed by  emancipation  and  deportation  ;  because  the  vacuum 
occasioned  by  the  exportation  of  the  slaves  will  be  filled  up 
by  the  influx  of  freemen  from  the  north  and  other  portions  of 
the  Union — and  thus,  for  every  slave  we  lose,  it  is  contended 
that  we  shall  receive  in  exchange  a  free  laborer,  much  more 
productive  and  moral.  If  we  are  not  greatly  mistaken,  this, 
on  analysis,  will  be  found  to  be  a  complete  specimen  of  that 
arithmetical  school  boy  reasoning,  which  has  ever  proved  so 
deceptive  in  politics,  and  so  ruinous  in  its  practical  consequen- 
ces ;  and  first,  let  us  see  whether  anything  will  be  gained  in 
point  of  productiveness,  by  this  exchange  of  slave  labor  for 
free,  even  upon  the  avowed  principles  of  the  abolitionists 
themselves.  The  great  objections  to  slave  labor  seems  to 
be — First,  that  it  is  unproductive,  or  at  least,  not  as  produc- 
tive as  free  labor  ;  and  secondly,  that  it  is  calculated  to"*repel 
free  labor  from  the  sphere  in  which  it  is  exercised.  This  lat- 
ter effect  has  been  briefly  and  more  ingeniously  urged  by  a 
writer  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer  of  the  3rd  of  March,  1832, 
over  the  signature  of  "York,"  than  by  any  one,  who  is  known 

our  State,  for  the  purpose  of  purchasing  their  own  slaves,  and  thereby 
evading  the  laws.  There  are,  in  fact,  so  maoy  plans  which  will  effect- 
ually defeat  all  these  preventive  regulations,  that  we  may  consider 
their  rigid  enforcement  utterly  impracticable  ;  and  moreover,  as  the 
excitement  produced  by  the  late  insurrection  in  Virginia,  dies  away, 
so  will  these  laws  be  forgotten,  and  remain  as  dead  letters  upon  the 
statute  books. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  363 

to  us,  and  wo  shall  consequently  introduce  an  extract  from  liis 
essay. 

"  Society  naturally  resolves  itself,"  says  this  writer,  "  into 
three  classes.  The  first  comprehends  professional  men,  capi- 
talists and  large  landed  proprietors  ;  the  second  embraces 
artisans  and  small  proprietors  ;  and  the  third  is  composed  of 
common  laborers.  Now,  we  are  a  society  placed  in  the 
anomalous  predicament  of  being  totally  without  a  laboring 
class  ;  for  all  our  labor  is  performed  by  slaves,  who  consti- 
tute no  part  of  that  society,  and  who  quoad  that  society,  may 
be  regarded6  as  brutes  or  machines.  This  circumstance  ope- 
rates directly  as  a  check  upon  the  increase  of  white  popula- 
tion. Foi\  as  some  intelligence  or  property  is  required  to  en- 
able a  man  to  belong  to  either  of  the  two  first  classes  above 
enumerated,  (and  which  I  have  remarked  are  the  only  classes 
which  we  have,)  and  so  no  one  with  ordinary  self-respect  can 
submit  to  sink  below  them,  and  become  outcasts,  the  imme- 
diate tendency  of  the  supernumerary  members  is  to  emigra- 
tion." We  will  not,  for  the  present,  dispute  the  premises  of 
the  very  intelligent  and  graceful  writer,  from  whom  we  have 
copied  the  above  extract ;  we  have  endeavored  throughout 
the  review,  to  show  that  our  adversaries  are  not  justified  in 
their  conclusions,  even  if  we  admit  the  truth  of  their  premises. 
Now,  what  is  the  conclusion  arrived  at  by  our  adversaries^ 
from  the  premises  just  mentioned  ?  That  we  must  deport 
our  slaves  as  fast  as  possible,  and  leave  the  vacuum  to  be  fill- 
ed by  free  labor.  In  the  first  place,  then,  we  say  upon  their 
own  principles  even,  they  cannot  expect  free  labor  to  take  the 
place  of  slave,  for  every  one  acknowledges  it  utterly  impossi- 
ble to  send  away,  at  once,  all  our  slaves — there  is  scarcely, 
we  presume,  a  single  abolitionist  in  Virginia,  who  has  ever 
supposed  that  we  can  send  away  more  than  the  annual  in- 
crease. Now,  then,  we  ask,  how  can  any  one  reasonably  ex- 


364  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

pect  that  the  taking  away  of  two  or  three  negroes  from  a  body 
of  one  hundred,  (and  this  is  a  much  greater  proportion  than 
the  abolitionists  hope  to  colonize,)  can  destroy  that  prejudice 
against  laboring  with  the  blacks,  which  is  represented,  as 
preventing  the  whites  from  laboring,  .and  as  sending  them 
in  multitudes  to  the  West.  If  we  are  too  proud  to  work  in  a 
field  with  fifty  negro  men  this  year,  we  shall  surely  be  no  more 
disposed  to  do  it  next  year,  because  one  negro,  the  increase  of 
fifty,  has  been  sent  to  Liberia  ;  and  consequently  the  above 
reasoning,  if  it  prove  any  thing,  proves  that  we  must  prevent 
our  laboring  classes  (the  blacks)  from  increasing,  because 
whites  will  not  work  with  them — although  the  whites  will  be 
just  as  averse  to  working  with  them  after  you  have  checked 
their  increase  as  before. 

But  let  us  suppose,  that  by  some  kind  of  logical  legerde- 
main, it  can  be  proven  that  free  labor  will  supply  the  place 
of  slave  labor,  which  is  deported  to  Africa — even  then,  we 
think,  they  will  fail  upon  their  other  great  principle,  that  free 
labor  is  better  than  slave,  the  truth  of  which  principle,  for 
the  present,  we  are  willing  to  allow — and  their  whole  argu- 
ment fails,  for  this  plain  and  palpable  reason,  that  free  labor, 
by  association  with  slave  labor,  must  inevitably  be  brought 
down  to  its  level,  and  even  below  it, — for  the  vices  of  the 
slave  you  may  correct,  by  means  of  your  authority  over  him, 
but  those  of  the  associate  free  laborer  you  cannot.  Every 
farmer  in  Virginia,  can  testify  to  the  truth  of  this  assertion. 
He  knows  full  well,  that  if  he  employs  a  white  laborer  to 
work  with  a  black  one,  even  at  job  work,  where  of  course  the 
inducement  of  labor  is  greatest — he  will  do  no  more  than  the 
negro,  and  perhaps,  in  a  majority  of  cases,  he  will  not  do  as 
much.  What  then  might  we  expect  of  him,  if  he  should 
enter  the  field  with  fifty  fold  his  number  of  blacks,  to  work 
along  with  them  regularly  through  the  four  seasons  of  the 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  CG5 

year  ?  We  hazard  little  in  saying,  he  would  be  a  more  un- 
productive laborer  than  the'black,  for  he  would  soon  have  all 
his  idle  propensities,  without  being  subjected  to  the  same  sal- 
utary restraint. 

It  is  a  well  known  general  fact,  to  all  close  observers  of  man- 
kind, that  if  two  different  grades  of  labor  as  to  productiveness 
be  associated  together  in  the  same  occupation,  the  higher  has 
a  tendency  to  descend  to  the  level  of  the  lower.  Schmalz,  in 
his  Political  Economy,  says,  that  the  indolence  and  carelessness 
of  the  serfs  in  the  north  of  Europe,  corrupt  the  free  laborers 
who  come  in  contact  with  them.  Jones,  in  his  volume  on 
Rents,  says,  "  a  new  road  is  at  this  time  (1831)  making, 
which  is  to  connect  Hamburg  and  the  Elb  with  Berlin ;  it 
passes  over  the  sterile  sands,  of  which  so  much  of  the  north 
of  Germany  consists,  and  the  materials  for  it  are  supplied  by 
those  isolated  blocks  of  granite,  of  which  the  presence  on  the 
surface  of  those  sands  forms  a  notorious  geological  puzzle. 
These  blocks,  transported  to  the  line  of  road,  are  broken  to 
the  proper  size  by  workmen,  some  of  whom  are  Prussian 
free  laborers,  others  Leibeigeners  of  the  Mecklenburg  terri- 
tory, through  a  part  of  which  the  road  passes.  They  are  paid 
a  stipulated  sum  for  breaking  a  certain  quantity,  and  all  art 
paid  alike.  Yet  the  Leibeigeners  could  not  at  first  be  pre- 
vailed upon  to  break  more  than  one-third  of  the  quantity 
which  formed  the  ordinary  task  of  the  Prussians.  The  men 
were  mixed  in  the  hope  that  the  example  and  the  gains  of  the 
more  industrious  would  animate  the  sluggish.  Now,  mark 
the  result.  A  contrary  effect  followed  ;  the  Leibeigeners  did 
not  improve,  but  the  exertions  of  other  laborers  sensibly  slack- 
ened, and  at  the  time  my  informant  (the  English  Engineer 
who  superintended  the  work)  was  speaking  to  me,  the  men 
were  again  at  work  in  separate  gangs,  carefully  kept  asun 

31* 


366  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

der."*  And  thus  do  we  find,  by  an  investigation  of  this 
subject,  that  if  we  should  introduce,  by  any  means,  free  labor 
in  the  stead  of  slave  labor  deported  to  Africa,  that  it  will  be 
certain  to  deteriorate  by  association  with  slave  labor,  until  it, 
sinks  down  to  and  even  below  its  level.  So  far,  we  have  ad- 
mitted the  possibility  of  exchanging  slave  for  free  labor,  and 
have  endeavored  to  prove,  upon  the  principles  of  the  aboli- 
tionists, that  nothing  would  be  gained  by  it.  We  will  endea- 
vor to  prove,  and  we  think  we  can  do  it  incontestibly,  that 
the  scheme  of  the  abolition  and  deportation  will  not  and  can- 
not possibly  effect  this  exchange  of  slave  labor  for  free,  even 
if  it  were  desirable.  And  in  order  that  we  may  examine  the 
project  fully  in  this  point  of  view,  we  will  endeavor — first,  to 
trace  out  its  operation  on  the  slave  population,  and  then  on 
the  white.  , 

Since  the  publication  of  the  celebrated  work  of  Dr.  Malthus, 
on  the  "  principle  of  population,"  the  knowledge  of  the  causes 
which  effect  its  condition  and  increase,  is  much  more 
widely  diffused.  It  is  now  well  known  to  every  student  of 
political  economy,  that  in  the  wide  range  of  legislation,  there 
is  nothing  more  dangerous  than  too  much  tampering  with  the 
elastic  and  powerful  spring  of  population. 

The  energies  of  government  a?e  for  the  most  part  feeble  or 
impotent  when  arrayed  against  its  action.  It  is  this  procrea- 
tive  power  of  human  species  either  exerted  or  dormant,  which 
so  frequently  brushes  away  in  reality  the  visionary  fabrics  of 
the  philanthropists,  and  mars  the  cherished  plots  and  schemes 
of  statesmen.  Euler  has  endeavored  to  prove,  by  some  cal- 
culations, that  the  human  species,  under  the  most  favorable 
circumstances,  is  capable  of  doubling  itself  once  in  twelve 
years. 

*  See  Jones's  Political  Economy,  vol.  1,  pp.  61,  62 — London  Edition. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  367 

In  our  Western  country,  the  progress  of  population  lias,  in 
many  extensive  districts,  been  so  rapid  as  to  show,  in  our  opin- 
ion most  conclusively,  that  it  is  capable  of  doubling  itself  once 
in  fifteen  years  without  the  aid  of  emigration.  The  whole  of 
our  population,  since  the  independence  of  the  United  States, 
has  shown  itself  fully  capable  of  duplication  in  periods  of 
twenty-five  years,  without  the  accession  from  abroad.*  In 
some  portions  of  our  country  the  population  is  stationary,  in 
others  but  very  slowly  advancing.  We  will  assume  then  for 
the  two  extremes  in  our  country,  the  stationary  condition  on 
the  one  side,  and  such  increase  on  the  other  as  to  give  rise  to 
a  duplication  every  fifteen  years.  Now  as  throughout  the 
whole  range  comprehended  between  these  extremes,  popula- 
tion is  capable  of  exerting  various  degrees  of  energy,  it  is  very 
evident  that  the  statesman  who  wishes  to  increase  or  dimin- 
ish population,  must  look  cautiously  to  the  effect  of  his  mea- 
sures on  its  spring,  and  see  how  this  will  be  acted  on.  If,  for 
example,  his  object  be  to  lessen  the  number  of  slowly  increas- 
ing population,  he  must  be  convinced  that  his  plan  does  not 
stimulate  the  procreative  energies  of  society  to  produce  more 
than  he  is  capable  of  taking  away  ;  or  if  his  object  be  to  in- 
crease the  numbers,  take  heed  lest  this  project  deaden  and 
paralyze  the  source  of  increase  so  much  as  to  more  than  coun- 
terbalance any  effort  of  his.  Now  looking  at  the  texture  of 
the  Virginia  population,  the  desideratum  is  to  diminish  the 
blacks  and  increase  the  whites.  Let  us  see  how  the  scheme 
of  emancipation  and  deportation  will  act.  We  have  already 
shown  that  the  first  operation  of  the  plan,  if  slave  property 
were  rigidly  respected  and  never  taken  without  full  compen- 
sation, would  be  to  put  a  stop  to  the  efflux  from  the  State 
through  other  channels ;  but  this  would  not  be  the  only  effect. 

I *  The  longest  period  of  duplication  has  been  about  twenty-three 


368     "  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

Government  entering  into  the  market  with  individuals,  would 
elevate  the  price  of  slaves  beyond  their  natural  value,  and 
consequently,  the  raising  of  them  would  become  an  object  of 
primary  importance  throughout  the  whole  State.  We  can 
readily  imagine  that  the  price  of  slaves  might  become  so  great 
that  each  master  would  do  all  in  his  power  to  encourage 
marriage  among  them — would  allow  the  females  almost  en- 
tire exception  from  labor,  that  they  might  the  better  breed 
and  nurse — and  would  so  completely  concentrate  his  efforts 
iipon  this  object,  as  to  neglect  other  schemes  and  less  produc- 
tive sources  of  wealth.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  pro- 
lific African  might,  no  doubt,  be  stimulated  to  press  hard 
upon  one  of  the  limits  above  stated,  doubling  in  numbers  in 
fifteen  years  ;  and  such  is  the  tendency  which  our  abolition 
'schemes,  if  seriously  engaged  in,  will  most  undoubtedly  pro- 
duce ;  they  will  be  certain  to  stimulate  the  procreative  pow- 
ers of  that  very  race  which  they  are  aiming  to  diminish ;  they 
will  enlarge  and  invigorate  the  very  monster  which  they  ar-e 
endeavoring  to  stifle,  and  realize  the  beautiful  but  melancholy 
fable  of  Sisyphus,  by  an  eternal  renovation  of  hope  and  dis- 
appointment. If  it  were  possible  for  Virginia  to  purchase  and 
send  off  annually  for  the  next  twenty-five  or  fifty  years,  12,000 
slaves,  we  should  have  very  little  hesitation  in  affirming,  that 
the  number  of  slaves  in  Virginia  would  not  be  at  all  lessened 
by  the  operation,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  period  such 
habits  would  be  generated  among  our  blacks,  that  for  a  long 
time  after  the  cessation  of  the  drain,  population  might  advance 
so  rapidly  as  to  produce  among  us  all  the  calamities  and 
miseries  of  an  over-crowded  people. 

We  are  not  now  detailing  in   mere  conjecture  ;  there  is 
ample  proof  of  the  correctness  of  these  anticipations  in  the 

years  seven  months,  so  that  the  addition  of  one  year  and  five  months 
more  than  compensate  for  the  emigration. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 


sea 


history  of  own  hemisphere.  The  West  India  Islands,  as  we 
have  before  seen,  are  supplied  with  slaves  more  cheaply  by 
the  African  slave  trader  than  they  can  raise  them,  and  conse- 
quently the  black  population  in  the  islands  nowhere  keeps  up 
its  numbers  by  natural  increase.  It  appears  by  a  statement 
of  Mr.  F.  Buxton,  recently  published,  that  the  total  number 
of  slaves  in  the  British  West  Indies,  in  1817,  was  730,112. 
After  the  lapse  of  eleven  years,  in  1828,  the  numbers  were 
reduced  to  678,527,  making  a  loss  on  the  capital  of  1817,  in 
the  short  space  of  eleven  years,  of  51,585.*  In  the  Mauritius, 
in  the  same  space  of  time,  the  loss  on  the  capital  of  1817, 
amounting  to  but  76,774,  was  10,767.  Even  in  the  Island 
of  Cuba,  where  the  negro  slave  is  treated  as  humanely  as  any 
where  on  the  globe,  from  1804  to  1817,  the  blacks  lost  4,461, 
upon  the  stock  of  1804.  "  Prior  to  the  annexation  of  Louisi- 
ana to  the  United  States,"  says  Mr.  Clay  in  his  Colonization 
Speech  of  1830,  "  the  slaves  from  Africa  were  abundant.  The 
price  of  adults  was  generally  about  $100,  a  price  less  than 
the  cost  of  raising  an  infant.  Then  it  was  believed  that  the 
climate  of  that  province  was  unfavorable  to  the  rearing  of  ne- 
gro children,  and  comparatively  few  were  raised.  After  the 
United  States  abolished  the  slave  trade,  the  price  of  adults 
rose  very  considerably — greater  attention  was,  consequently, 
bestowed  on  their  children,  and  now  nowhere  is  the  African 
female  more  prolific  than  she  is  in  Louisiana,  and  the  climate 
of  no  one  of  the  Southern  States  is  supposed  to  be  more  fav- 
orable to  the  rearing  of  her  offspring."  For  a  similar  reason 

*  Bryant  Edwards  attributes  the  decrease  of  the  slaves  in  the  West 
Indies  principally  to  the  disproportion  of  the  sexes.  But  in  the  pre- 
sent instance,  we  are  constrained  to  attribute  it  to  another  cause,  for 
we  find  of  the  730,112  slaves  in  the  sugar  islands  in  1817,  369,577 
were  males,  and  363,535  were  females,  being  very  nearly  an  equal 
division  of  the  sexes. 


. 

370  ~  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLA  VERT. 

now,  the  slaves  in  Virginia  multiply  more  rapidly  than  in 
most  of  the  Southern  States ;  the  Virginians  can  raise  cheap- 
er than  they  can  buy ;  in  fact,  it  is  one  of  their  greatest  sources 
of  profit.  In  many  of  the  other  slaveholding  States,  this 
is  not  the  case,  and  consequently,  the  same  care  is  not  taken 
to  encourage  matrimony  and  the  rearing  of  children. 

-For  a  similar  reason,  in  ancient  times,  few  slaves  were 
reared  in  populous  districts  and  large  towns,  these  being  sup- 
plied with  slaves  raised  at  a  distance  or  taken  in  war,  at  a 
cheaper  rate  than  they  could  be  raised.  "  The  comparison  is 
shocking,"  says  Mr.  Hume,  "  between  the  management  of  hu- 
man beings  and  that  of  cattle ;  but  being  extremely  just  when 
applied  to  the  present  subject,  it  may  be  proper -to  trace  the 
consequences  of  it.  At  the  capital,  near  all  great  cities,  in  all 
populous,  rich,  industrious  provinces,  few  cattle  are  bred.  Pro- 
visions, lodging,  attendance,  labor,  are  there  dear,  and  men 
find  their  accounts  better  in  buying  the  cattle  after  they  come 
to  a  certain  age,  from  the  remote  and  cheaper  countries. 
These  are,  consequently,  the  only  breeding  countries  for  cat- 
tle ;  and  by  parity  of  reason  for  men  too,  when  the  latter  are 
put  on  the  same  footing  with  the  former,  as  to  buying  and 
selling.  To  rear  a  child  in  London  till  he  could  be  serviceable, 
would  cost  much  dearer  than  to  buy  one  of  the  same  age  from 
Scotland  or  Ireland,  where  he  had  been  bred  in  a  cottage, 
covered  with  rags,  and  fed  on  oatmeal  and  potatoes.  Those 
who  had  slaves,  therefore,  (in  ancient  times,)  in  all  the  richer 
and  more  populous  countries,  would  discourage  the  pregnancy 
of  the  females,  and  either  prevent  or  destroy  the  birth.*  .  . 
A  perpetual  recruit  was,  therefore,  wanted  from  the  poorer 

*  Such  means  as  the  last  mentioned,  will  never  be  resorted  to  by 
any  civilized  nation  of  modern  times,  either  in  Europe  or  America  ; 
but  others  of  a  less  objectionable  character  most  certainly  -will  be, 
whenever  the  rearing  of  slaves  entails  a  great  expense  on  the  master 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  371 

and  more  desert  provinces.  .  .  .  All  ancient  authors 
tell  us  that  there  was  a  perpetual  flux  of  slaves  to  Italy  from 
the  remoter  provinces,  particularly  Syria,  Cilicia,*  Cappado- 
cia,  and  the  lesser  Asia,  Thrace  and  Egypt.  Yet  the  number 
of  people  did  not  increase  in  Italy."f  It  is  thus  we  see  every- 
where, that  the  spring  of  population  accommodates  itself  to 
the  demand  for  human  beings,  and  becomes  inert  or  active  in 
proportion  to  the  value  of  the  laborer  and  the  small  or  great 
expense  of  rearing  him. 

It  was  upon  this  very  principle  that  Mr.  Pitt,  in  1791, 
based  the  masterly  and  unanswerable  argument  contained  in 
his  splendid  speech  on  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  ;  in 
which  he  proved,  upon  data  furnished  by  the  West  India 
planters  themselves,  that  the  moment  an  end  was  put  to  slave 
trade,  the  natural  increase  of  negroes  would  commence,  and 
more  than  keep  up  their  numbers  in  the  islands. 

But  our  opponents,  perhaps,  may  be  disposed  to  answer, 
that  this  increase  of  slavery  from  the  stimulus  to  the  black 
population  afforded  by  the  colonization  abroad,  ought  not  to 
be  objected  to  on  our  own  principles,  since  each  slave  will  be 
worth  two  handred  dollars  or  more.  This  answer  would  be 
correct  enough  if  it  were  not  that  the  increase  of  the  blacks  is 
effected  at  our  expense,  both  as  to  wealth  and  numbers ;  and 
to  show  this,  we  will  now  proceed  to  point  out  the  operation 
of  the  scheme  under  consideration  upon  the  white  population. 
Malthus  has  clearly  shown  that  population  depends  on  the 
means  of  subsistence,  and  will,  under  ordinary  circumstances, 
increase  to  a  level  with  them.  Now,  by  means  of  subsistence, 
we  must  not  only  comprehend  the  necessaries  of  life,  such  as 

*  "  10,000  slaves  in  a  day  have  otten  been  sold  for  the  use  of  the 
Komans  at  Delos,  in  Cilicia." — Strabo,  Lib.  14. 

•  t  See  Hume's -Essays,  part  2d,  essay  llth,  on  Topulousness  of  An- 
cient Empires. 


372  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

food,  clothing,  shelter,  &c.,  but  likewise  such  conveniences, 
comforts,  and  even  luxuries,  as  the  habits  of  the  society  may 
render  it  essential  for  all  to  enjoy.  Whatever,  then,  has  a 
tendency  to  destroy  the  wealth  and  diminish  the  aggregate 
capital  of  society,  has  the  effect,  as  long  as  the  standard  of 
comfort*  remains  the  same,  to  check  the  progress  of  the  pop- 
ulation. 

It  is  sure  to  discourage  matrimony  and  cause  children  to  be 
less  carefully  attended  to,  and  to  be  less  abundantly  supplied. 
The  heavy  burthens  which  have  hitherto  been  imposed  on 
Virginia,  through  the  operation  of  the  federal  exactions,  to- 
gether with  the  high  standard  of  comfort  prevalent  through- 
out the  whole  State,  (about  which  we  shall,  by  and  by,  make 
a  few  observations,)  have  already  imposed  checks  upon  the 
progress  of  the  white  population  of  the  State.  If  not  one 
single  individual  were  to  emigrate  from  the  State  of  Virginia, 
it  would  be  found,  so  inert  has  become  the  principle  of  in- 
crease in  the  State,  that  the  population  would  not  advance 
with  the  average  rapidity  of  the  American  people.  Now, 
tinder  these  circumstances,  an  imposition  of  an  additional 
burthen  of  $1,380,000  for  the  purpose  of  purchase  and  de- 
portation of  slaves,  would  add  so  much  to  the  taxes  of  the 
citizens — would  subtract  so  much  from  the  capital  of  the 
State,  and  "increase  so  greatly  the  embarrassments  of  the 
whole  population,  that  fewer  persons  would  be  enabled  to 
support  families,  and  consequently  to  get  married.  This 
great  tax,  added  *to  those  we  are  already  suffering  under, 
would  weigh  like  an  incubus  upon  the  whole  State — it  would 
operate  like  the  blighting  hand  of  Providence  that  should  ren- 
der our  soil  barren  and  our  labor  unproductive.  It  would 

*  By  standard  of  comfort,  ve  mean  that  amount  of  necessaries,  con- 
veniences, luxuries,  which  the  habits  of  any  people  render  essential  to 
them. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  373 

Diminish  the  value  of  the/ee  simple  of  Virginia,  and  not  only 
check  the  natural  increase  of  population  within  the  Common- 
wealth, but  would  make  every  man  desirous  of  quitting  the 
scenes  of  his  home  and  his  infancy,  and  fleeing  from  the  heavy 
burthen  which  would  forever  keep  him  and  his  children  bu- 
ried in  the  depths  of  poverty.  His  sale  of  negroes  would 
partly  enable  him  to  emigrate  ;  and  we  have  little  doubt, 
that  whenever  this  wild  scheme  shall  be  seriously  commenc- 
ed, it  will  be  found  that  more  whites  than  negroes  will  be 
banished  by  its  operation  from  the  State.  And  there  will  be 
this  lamentable  difference  between  those  who  are  left  behind: 
a  powerful  stimulus  will  be  given  to  the  procreative  energies 
of  the  blacks,  while  those  of  the  whites  will  be  paralyzed  and 
destroyed.  Every  emigrant  from  among  the  whites  will  cre- 
ate a  vacuum  not  to  be  supplied — every  removal  of  a  black 
will  stimulate  the  generation  of  another. 

"  TJno  avuko  non  deficit  alter." 

The  poverty  stricken  master  would  rejoice  in  the  prolific- 
ness  of  his  female  slave,  but  pray  Heaven  in  its  kindness  to 
strike  with  barrenness  his  own  spouse,  lest,  in  the  plenitude  of 
his  misfortunes,  brought  on  by  the  wild  and  quixotic  philan- 
thropy of  his  government,  he  might  see  around  him  a  nume- 
rous offspring  unprovided  for,  and  destined  to  galling  indi- 
gence. 

It  is  almost  useless  to  inquire  whether  this  deportation  of 
slaves  to  Africa  would,  as  some  seem  most  strangely  to  antici- 
pate, invite  the  whites  of  other  States  into  the  Common- 
wealth. Who  would  be  disposed  to  enter  a  State  with  worn 
out  soil,  and  a  black  population  mortgaged  to  the  payment  of 
millions  per  annum,  for  the  purpose  of  emancipation  and  de- 
portation, when  in  the  West  the  most  luxuriant  soils,  unin- 
32 


3*74  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

cumbered  with  heavy  exactions,  could  be  purchased  for  the 
paltry  sum  of  $1  25  per  acre  ? 

Where,  then,   is   that  multitude  of  whites  to  come  from, 
which  the  glowing  fancy  of  orators  has  sketched  out  as  flow- 
ing into  and  filling  up  the  vacuum  created  by  the  removal  of 
slaves  ?     The  fact  is,  throughout  the  whole  debate  in  the  Vir- 
ginia Legislature,  the  speakers  seemed  to  consider  the  increase 
of  population  as  a  sort  .of  fixed  quantity,  which  would  remain 
the  same  under  the  endless  change  of  circumstance,  and  con- 
sequently that  every  man  exported  from  among  the  blacks, 
lessened  pro  tanto  exactly  the  black  population,  and  that  the 
whites,  moving  on  with  their  usual  speed,  would  fill  the  void  ; 
which  certainly  was  an  erroneous  supposition,  and  manifested 
an  almost  unpardonable  inattention  to  the  wonderful  elasticity 
of  the  powerful  spring  of  population.     The  removal  of  inhab- 
itants, accompanied  with  great  loss   of  productive  labor  and 
capital,  so  far  from  leaving  the  residue  in  a  better  situation, 
and  disposing  them  to  increase  and   multiply,,  produces  the 
directly  opposite  effect ;  it  deteriorates  the  condition  of  society, 
and  deadens  the  spring  of  population.     It  is  curious  to  look 
to  the  history  of  the  world,  and  see  how  completely  this  posi- 
tion is  sustained  by  facts.     Since  the  downfall  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  there  have    been    three  forced   emigrations  of  very 
considerable  extent,  from   three  of  the  countries  of  Europe. 
The  Moors  were  expelled  from   Spain,   the  Protestants  from 
the  Netherlands,  and  the  Huguenots  from  France  ;  each  of 
these  expulsions  came  well  nigh  ruining  the  country  from 
which  it  took  place.    We  are  best  acquainted  with  the  effects 
of  the  expulsions  of  the  Huguenots   from  France,  because  it 
happened  nearer  to  our  own  times,  during  the  reign  of  Louis 
XIV.      In  this  case,  only  500,000  are  supposed  to  have  left 
France,  containing  then  a  population  of  20  or  25,000,000  of 
souls.     The  energies  of  this  mighty  country  seemed  at  once 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  375 

paralyzed  by  this  emigration,  her  prosperity  -was  instantly  ar- 
rested, her  remaining  population  lost  the  vigor  which  charac- 
terised them  as  long  as  this  leaven  was  among  them,  and  to 
this  day  France  has  not  recovered  from  the  tremendous  blow. 
Her  inferiority  to  England  in  industry  and  all  the  useful  arts 
is  in  a  great  measure  to  be  traced  back  to  this  stupid  intol- 
erance of  her  great  monarch  Louis  XIV.  The  reason  why 
these  expulsions  were  so  very  injurious  to  the  countries  in. 
question,  was  because  the  emigrants  were  the  laboring  classes 
of  society,  and  their  banishment  consequently  dried  up  the 
sources  of  production,  and  lessened  the  aggregate  wealth  and 
capital  of  the  people.  Now,  these  expulsions  are  nothing  in 
comparison  with  that  contemplated  by  our  abolitionists.  In 
France,  only  one  in  fifty  of  the  population  was  expelled,  and 
no  expense  was  incurred  in  the  deportation  ;  but,  in  Virginia, 
the  proportion  to  be  expelled  is  much  greater,  and  the  ex- 
p  ense  is  to  devolve  on  the  government. 

When  the  emigration  is  accompanied  with  no  loss  of  capital 
to  the  State,  and  no  abstraction  of  productive  labor,  then -the 
population  will  not  be  injuriously  affected,  but  sometimes  great- 
ly benefitted.  In  the  hunting  state,  the  expulsion  of  half  of 
the  tribe  would  benefit  the  remainder  in  a  politico-economical 
light,  because  they  live  on  the  game  of  the  forest,  which  be- 
comes more  abundant  as  soon  as  the  consumers  diminish. 
Pastoral  nations,  for  a  like  reason,  are  rarely  injured  by  emi- 
gration, for  they  live  on  cattle,  and  the  cattle  live  on  the  spon- 
taneous produce  of  the  earth,  and  when  a  colony  is  sent  off, 
the  remainder  will  generally  be  benefitted,  since  the  consump- 
tion is  relieved  while  the  production  is  not  diminished.  And 
this  satisfactorily  explains  the  difficulty  which  has  so  much 
puzzled  historians  ;  how  the  North  of  Europe,  which  Gibbon, 
Hume,  and  Robertson,  all  maintain  was  in  a  pastoral  state, 
and  not  nearly  so  thickly  settled  as  at  present,  should  never- 


376  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

theless  have  been  able  for  several  centuries  to  furnish,  those 
terrible  swarms  of  barbarians,  who,  "  gathering  fresh  darkness 
and  terror"  as  they  rolled  on  upon  the  south,  at  length,  with 
their  congregated  multitudes,  "  obscured  the  sun  of  Italy,  and 
sunk  the  Roman  world  in  night."  This  example  of  the  bar- 
barians in  the  north  of  Europe,  sending  so  many  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  emigrants  to  the  south,  is  a  beautiful  illustra- 
tion of  the  capacity  of  population  to  counteract  the  effects 
of  emigration,  in  all  those  cases  where  the  spring  of  popula- 
tion is  not  weakened.  As  soon  as  new  swarms  left  the  coun- 
try, the  means  of  subsistence  were  more  ample  for  the  residue  ; 
the  vigor  of  population  soon  supplied  the  deficiency  ;  and  then 
another  swarm  went  forth  and  relieved  again  the  national 
hive.  Our  purchase  and  deportation  of  slaves  would  produce 
a  similar  effect  on  our  blacks,  but  it  would  be  entirely  at  the 
expense  of  both  the  numbers  and  wealth  of  the  whites,  and 
would  be,  therefore,  one  of  the  most  blighting  curses  that 
could  scathe  the  land.  Ireland,  at  present,  is  suffering  heavy  af- 
flictions from  an  overcrowded  population  ;  but  her  government 
could  not  relieve  her  by  sending  off  the  paupers,  and  for  the 
simple  reason  that  it  would  require  an  expense  on  the  part 
of  Ireland,  which  would  produce  as  great  or  even  greater  ab- 
straction of  capital  than  of  unproductive  mouths,  and  would, 
moreover,  give  more  vigor  to  the  spring  of  population.  If 
other  nations  would  incur  the  expense  for  her,  then  perhaps 
there  might  be  for  her  a  temporary  benefit ;  but  in  a  short  time 
such  a  stimulus  would  be  given  to  population,  as  would  coun- 
teract all  the  vain  efforts  of  man,  and  in  the  end,  leave  her 
in  a  worse  condition  than  before.  We  doubt  whether  Eng- 
land, France,  and  Germany,  by  a  steady  concentration  of  all 
their  financial  resources  upon  the  deportation  and  comfortable 
settlement  and  support  of  the  superabundant  population  of 
Ireland,  would,  at  the  expiration  of  fifty  years,  be  found  to 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  377 

-** 

have  lessened  the  numbers  by  one  single  individual.  The 
effect  would  merely  be,  to  pledge  the  resources  of  these  three 
nations  to  the  support  of  the  Irish  population,  and  to  substi- 
tute the  procreation  of  Irishmen  for  that  of  Englishmen, 
Frenchmen,  and  Germans  ;  and  as  soon  as  this  support  was 
withdrawn,  the  very  habits  which  had  been  generated  by  it  in 
Ireland,  would  be  its  greatest  curse.  The  only  effectual 
means  of  relieving  Ireland,  will  be  to  raise  the  standard  of 
comfort  in  that  country,  and  to  arrest  the  population  by  the 
preventive  checks  which  would  lessen  the  marriages.  Until 
this  be  done,  in  some  way  or  other,  Ireland  is  doomed  to  suf- 
fer the  heavy  penalty. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  explain  how  it  is  that  so  many 
negroes  have  been  exported  from  Africa  by  the  slave  trade, 
while  the  gap,  says  Franklin,  is  almost  imperceptible.  Gen. 
Broadnax,  in  his  speech,  computes  the  average  number  now 
annually  sent  out  from  Africa,  by  the  operation  of  the  slave 
trade,  to  be  100,000  ;  and,  he  adds,  if  all  this  can  be  effected 
against  so  many  risks  and  hazards,  and  in  violation  of  the 
laws  of  God  and  man,  shall  it  be  said  that  the  whole  State  of 
Virginia  cannot  export  6,000  to  Africa  in  a  year  ?  Yes, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  this  is  all  true  ;  and  the  simple  rea- 
son of  the  great  difference  is  that  Africa  incurs  no  expense, 
but  on  the  contrary,  generally  receives  a  full  equivalent  for 
the  deported  slave,  which  augments  her  means  of  subsistence, 
and  stimulates  the  spring  of  population.  The  slave  trade, 
which  takes  off  100,000  human  beings  from  Africa,  for  the 
slave  markets  of  the  West  Indies  and  South  America,  has,  by 
its  operation,  quickened  the  procreative  powers  of  society  in 
Africa  to  such  an  extent,  as  not  only  to  keep  up  her  numbers, 
but  to  furnish  besides  100,000  souls  for  exportation.  Could 
we  suppose  it  possible  for  this  slave  trade  to  be  annihilated 
at  a  blow  ;  repugnant  and  shocking  as  it  is  to  every  feeling  of 
32* 


378  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

humanity,  it  would  be  found  that  its  sudden  cessation  would 
plunge  the  whole  of  Western  Africa,  for  a  season,  into  the 
most  dreadful  anarchy   and  appalling  distress.     It  would  be 
found  that  the  habits  of  the  people  had  been  formed  to  suit 
the  slave  trade,  and  accordingly,  would  be  much  too  favorable 
to  the  rapid  increase  of  population  without  that  trade — prison- 
ers of  war  would  be  slaughtered,  infants  murdered,  marri- 
ages discouraged,  and  swarms  of  redundant  citizens  sent  forth 
to  ravage  neighboring  countries ;  and  all  this  would  arise  from 
the  too  rapid  increase  of  population,  for  the  means  of  subsis- 
tence, caused  by  the  sudden  stopping  of  the  slave  trade.     It 
will  be  thus  seen,  that  the    100,000   annually  sent  off  from 
Africa,  are  a  source  of  profit  and  not  of -expenditure.     Saddle 
Africa  with  the  whole  of  this  burthen,  and  we  are  perfectly 
sure   that  the  entire  resources   of  that  immense   continent 
would  not  suffice  to  purchase  up,  send  off,  and  colonize  5,000 
per  annum.     There  is  the  same  difference  between  this  expor- 
tation from  Africa,   and   that  proposed  by  the  abolitionists 
from  Virginia,   that  there  is   between  the  agriculturist  who 
sends  his  produce  to  a  foreign  state  or  country,  and  receives 
back  a  full  equivalent,  and  him  who  is  condemned  to  send 
his  abroad  at  his  own  expense,  and  to  distribute  it  gratuitous- 
ly.    We  imagine  that  no  one  who  was  acquainted  with  the 
condition  of  these  two  farmers  would  wonder  that  one  should 
grow  wealthy,  and  the  other  miserably  poor.     The  6,000 
slaves  which  Virginia  annually  sends  off  to  the  South  are  a 
source  of  wealth  to  Virginia  ;  but  the  1,000  or  2,000  whites 
who  probably  go  to  the  West,  are  a  source  of  poverty  ;  be- 
cause, hi  the  former  case,   we  have  an  equivalent  left  in  the 
place  of  the  exported  slave — in  the  latter,  we  lose  both  labor 
'  and  capital,  without  an  equivalent ;  and  precisely  such  a  re- 
sult in  a  much  more  aggravated  form,  will  spring  from  this 
mad  colonization  scheme,  should  it  ever  be  carried  into  ope- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  379 

ration.  If  the  governments  of  Europe  were  silly  enough  to 
appropriate  their  resources  to  the  purchase  of  our  slaves,  at 
their  full  marketable  value,  for  the  purpose  of  deportation, 
they  should,  for  aught  that  we  could  do,  have  every  one  that 
they  could  buy.  Au  equivalent  would  thus  be  left  for  the 
deported  slave,  and  however  much  others  might  suffer  for 
their  folly,  we  should  escape.* 

Against  most  of  the  great  difficulties  attendant  on  the  plan 
of  emancipation  above  examined,  it  was  impossible  for  the 
abolitionists  entirely  to  close  their  eyes  ;  and  it  is  really  curi- 
ous to  pause  a  moment  and  examine  some  of  the  reflections 
and  schemes  by  which  Virginia  was  to  be  reconciled  to  the 
plan.  We  have  been  told  that  it  would  not  be  necessary  to 
purchase  all  the  slaves  sent  away — that  many  would  be  sur- 
rendered by  their  owners  without  an  equivalent.  "  There  are 
a  number  of  slaveholders,"  said  one  who  has  all  the  lofty 
feeling  and  devoted  patriotism  which  have  hitherto  so  proud- 
ly characterized  Virginia,  "  at  this  very  time,  I  do  not  speak 
from  vain  conjecture,  but  from  what  I  know  from  the  best 
information,  and  this  number  would  continue  to  increase,  who 
would  voluntarily  surrender  their  slaves,  if  the  State  would 
provide  the  means  of  colonizing  them  elsewhere.  And  there 
would  be  again  another  class,  I  have  already  heard  of  many, 
while  they  could  not  afford  to  sacrifice  the  entire  value  of 
their  slaves,  would  cheerfully  compromise  with  the  State  for 
half  their  value."  In  the  first  place,  we  would  remark,  that 
the  gentleman's  anticipation  would  certainly  prove  delusive — 

*  Perhaps  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  (if  it  could  be  reconciled  to 
our  conscience,)  which  could  be  conferred  on  the  Southern  portion  of 
the  Union,  would  arise  from  the  total  abolition  of  the  African  slave  » 
trade,  and  the  opening  of  the  West  India  and  South  American  mar- 
kets to  our  slaves.  "We  do  not  believe  that  deportation  to  any  other, 
or  in  any  other  way,  can  ever  effect  the  slightest  diminution. 


380  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

the  surrender  of  a  very  few  slaves  would  enhance  the  import- 
ance and  value  of  the  residue,  and  make  the  owner  much 
more  reluctant  to  part  with  them.  Let  any  farmer  in  Lower 
Virginia  ask  himself  how  many  he  can  spare  from  his  planta- 
tion— and  he  will  be  surprised  ttfsee  how  few  can  be  dispensed 
with.  If  that  intelligent  gentleman,  from  the  storehouse  of 
his  knowledge,  would  but  call  up  the  history  of  the  past,  he 
would  see  that  mere  philanthropy,  with  all  her  splendid 
boastings,  has  never  yet  accomplished  one  great  scheme  ;  he 
would  find  the  remark  of  that  great  judge  of  human  nature, 
the  illustrious  author  of  the  ;'  Wealth  of  Nations,"  that  no 
people  had  the  generosity  to  liberate  their  slaves,  until  it  be- 
came their  interest  to  do  so,  but  too  true  ;  and  the  philoso- 
phic page  of  Hume,  Robertson,  Stuart,  and  Sismondi,  would 
inform  him  that  the  serfs  of  Europe  have  been  only  gradually 
emancipated  through  the  operation  of  self-interest,  and  not 
philanthropy  ;  and  we  shall  soon  see  that  it  was  fortunate 
for  both  parties  that  this  was  the  case. 

But  it  is  strange,  indeed,  that  gentlemen  have  never  reflect- 
ed, that  the  pecuniary  loss  to  the  State  will  be  precisely  the 
same,  whether  the  negroes  be  purchased  or  gratuitously  sur- 
rendered. In  the  latter  case,  the  burthen  is  only  shifted  from 
the  whole  State  to  that  portion  where  the  surrender  is  made 
— thus,  if  we  own  $10,000  worth  of  this  property,  and  sur- 
render the  whole  to  government,  it  is  evident  that  we  lose  the 
amount  of  $10,000  ;  and  if  the  whole  of  Lower  Virginia 
could  at  once  be  induced  to  give  up  all  of  this  property,  and 
it  could  be  sent  away,  the  only  effect  of  this  generosity  and 
self-devotion  would  be  to  inflict  the  blow  of  desolation  more 
exclusively  on  this  portion  of  the  State — the  aggregate  loss 
would  be  the  same,  the  burthen  would  only  be  shifted  from 
the  whole  to  a  part — the  West  would  dodge  the  blow,  and 
perhaps  every  candid  citizen  of  Lower  Virginia  would  confess 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  381 

that  lie  is  devoid  of  that  refined  incomprehensible  patriotism 
which  would  call  for  self-immolation  on  the  shrine  of  folly, 
and  would  most  conscientiously  advise  the  Eastern  Virginians 
never  to  surrender  their  slaves  to  the  government  without  a 
fair  equivalent.  Can  it  be  genuine  philanthropy  to  persuade 
them  alone  to  step  forward  and  bear  the  whole  burden  ? 

Again :  some  have  attempted  to  evade  the  difficulties  by 
seizing  on  the  increase  of  the  negroes  after  a  certain  time. 
Thus,  Mr.  Randolph's  plan  proposed  that  all  born  after  the 
year  1840,  should  be  raised  by  their  masters  to  the  age  of 
eighteen  for  the  female,  and  twenty-one  for  the  male,  and 
then  hired  out,  until  the  neat  sum  arising  therefrom  amount- 
ed to  enough  to  send  them  away.  Scarcely  any  one  in  the 
Legislature — we  believe  not  even  the  author  himself — entirely 
approved  of  this  plan.*  It  is  obnoxious  to  the  objections  we 
have  just  been  stating  against  voluntary  surrender.  It  pro- 
poses to  saddle  the  slaveholder  with  the  whole  burthen  ;  it 
infringes  directly  the  rights  of  property  ;  it  converts  the 
fee  simple  possession  of  this  kind  of  property  into  an  estate 
for  years  ;  and  it  only  puts  off  the  great  sacrifice  required  of 
the  State  to  1840,  when  most  of  the  evils  will  occur  that  have 
already  been  described.  In  the  meantime,  it  destroys  the 
value  of  slaves,  and  with  it  all  landed  possessions — checks  the 
productions  of  the  State,  imposes  (when  1840  arrives)  upon 
the  master  the  intolerable  and  grievious  burthen  of  raising  his 
young  slaves  to  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  twenty-one,  and 
then  liberating  them  to  be  hired  out  under  the  superinten- 
dence of  government,  (the  most  miserable  of  all  managers,) 
until  the  proceeds  arising  therefrom  shall  be  sufficient  to  send 

*  The  difficulty  of  falling  upon  any  definite  plan  -which  can  for  a 
moment  command  the  approbation  of  even  a  few  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent abolitionists,  is  an  unerring  symptom  of  the  difficulty  and  im- 
practicability of  the  whole. 


382  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

them  away.     If  any  man,  at  all  conversant  with  political  econ- 
omy, should  ever  anticipate  the  day  when  this  shall  happen, 
we  can  only  say  that  his  faith  is  great  indeed,  enough  to  re- 
move mountains,  and  that  he  has  studied  in  a  totally  different 
school  from  ourselves.     Let  us  ask,  in  the  language  of  one  of 
Virginia's  most  cherished  statesmen,  who  has  stood  by  and 
defended  with  so  much  zeal  and  ability  the  interests  of  Lower 
Virginia — and  who  shone  forth  one  of  the  brightest  stars  in 
that  constellation  of  talent  which  met  together  in  the  Virgi- 
nia Convention — "  Is  it  supposed  that  any  tyranny  can  subdue 
us  to  the  patient  endurance  of  such  a  state  of  things  ?     Every 
prudent  slaveholder  in  the  slaveholding  part  of  the  State, 
would  either  migrate  with  his  blaves  to  some  State  where  his 
rights  in  slave  property  would  be  secured  to  him  by  the  laws, 
or  would  surrender  at  once  his   rights  in  the  parent  stock  as 
well  as  in  their  future  increase,  and  seek  some  land  where  he 
may  enjoy  at  least  the  earnings  of  his  own  industry.     In  the 
first  case,  the  country  would  be  deserted ;  in  the  other,  it 
would  be  abandoned  to  the  slaves,  to  be  cultivated  under  the 
management  of  the  State.     The  plan  would  result  in  a  sacri- 
fice,  more  probably  an  abandonment,  of  our  landed,  as  well 
as  the  abolition  of  our  slave  property.     Can  any  thing  but 
force — can  any  force  tame  us  to  wrongs  like  these?"*    Again  ; 
we  entirely  agree  with  the  assertion  of  Mr.  Brown,  one  of 
the  ablest  and  most  promising  of  Virginia's  sons,  that  the  in- 
genuity of  man,  if  exerted  for  the  purpose,  could  not  devise  a 
more   efficient  mode  of  producing    discontent   among   our 
slaves,   and  thus  endangering  the  peace  of  the  community. 
There  are  born   annually  of  this   population  about  20,000 
children.      Those  which  are  born  before  the  year  1840  are  to 
be  slaves  ;  those  which  are  born  after  that  period  to  be  free  at 
a  certain  age.     These   two  classes  will  be  reared  .together  ; 
*  Letters  of  Appomattox  to  the  people  of  Virginia,  1st  letter,  p.  13. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  383 

they  will  labor  together,  and  commune  together.  It  cannot 
escape  the  observation  of  him  who  is  doomed  to  servitude, 
that  although  of  the  same  color  and  born  of  the  same  parents, 
a  far  different  destiny  awaits  his  more  fortunate  brother — as 
his  thoughts  again  and  again  revert  to  the  subject,  he  begins 
to  regard  himself  as  the  victim  of  injustice.  Cheerfulness 
and  contentment  will  flee  from  his  bosom  ;  and  the  most 
harmless  and  happy  creature  that  lives  on  earth,  will  bo 
transformed  into  a  dark,  designing  and  desperate  rebel. — 
(jB Town's  Speech,  pp.  8,  9.) 

There  are  some  again  who  exhaust  their  ingenuity  in  devisr 
ing  schemes  for  taking  off  the  breeding  portion  of  the  slaves 
to  Africa,  or  carrying  away  the  sexes  in  such  disproportions 
as  will,  in  a  measure,  prevent  those  left  behind  from  breed- 
ing. All  of  these  plans  merit  nothing  more  than  the  appel- 
lation of  vain  juggling  legislative  conceits,  unworthy  of  a 
statesman  and  a  moral  man.  If  our  slaves  are  ever  to  be 
sent  away  in  any  systematic  manner,  humanity  demands  that 
they  should  be  carried  in  families.  The  voice  of  the  world 
would  condemn  Virginia  if  she  sanctioned  any  plan  of  depor- 
tation by  which  the  male  and  female,  husband  and  wife,  pa- 
rent and  child,  were  systematically  and  relentlessly  separated. 
If  we  are  to  indulge  in  this  kind  of  regulating  vice,  why  not 
cure  the  ill  at  once,  by  following  the  counsel  of  Xenophon  in 
his  Economics,  and  the  practice  of  old  Cato  the  Censor  ?  Let 
us  keep  the  male  and  female  separated*  in  ergastula  or  dun- 
geons, if  it  be  necessary,  and  then  one  generation  will  pass 
away,  and  the  evil  will  be  removed  to  the  heart's  content  of 
our  humane  philanthropists  !  But  all  these  puerile  conceits 

*  See  Hume's  Essay  on  the  Populousness  of  Ancient  Nations,  where 
he  ascribes  this  practice  of  Cato  and  others,  to  prevent  their  slaves 
from  breeding. 


384  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

fall  far  short  of  surmounting  the  great  difficulty  which,  like 
Memnon,  is  eternally  present  and  cannot  be  removed. 

"  Sedet  eternumque  sedebit," 

There  is  slave  property  of  the  value  of  $100,000,000  in 
the  State  of  Virginia,  &c.,  and  it  matters  but  little  how  you 
destroy  it,  whether  by  the  slow  process  of  the  cautious  practi- 
tioner, or  with  the  frightful  despatch  of  the  self-confident 
quack  ;  when  it  is  gone,  no  matter  how,  the  deed  will  be 
done,  and  Virginia  will  be  a  desert. 

We  shall  now  proceed  to  examine  briefly,  the  most  dan- 
gerous of  all  the  wild  doctrines  advanced  by  the  abolitionists 
in  the  Virginia  Legislature,  and  the  one  which,  no  doubt,  will 
be  finally  acted  upon,  if  ever  this  business  of  emancipation 
shall  be  seriously  commenced.  It  was  contended  that  pro- 
perty is  the  creature  of  civil  society,  and  is  subject  to  action, 
even  to  destruction.  But  lest  we  may  misrepresent,  we  will 
give  the  language  of  the  gentleman  who  first  boldly  and  ex- 
ultingly  announced  it.  .  "  My  views  are  briefly  these,"  said 
Mr.  Faulkner  ;  "  they  go  to  the  foundation  upon  which  the 
social  edifice  rests — property  is  the  creature  of  civil  society. 
So  long  as  that  property  is  not  dangerous  to  the  good  order 
of  society,  it  may  and  will  be  tolerated.  But,  sir,  so  soon  as 
it  is  ascertained  to  jeopardize  the  peace,  the  happiness,  the 
good  order,  nay  the  very  existence  of  society,  from  that  mo- 
ment the  right  by  which  they  hold  their  property  is  gone,  so- 
ciety ceases  to  give  its  consent,  the  condition  upon  which  they 
are  permitted  to  hold  it  is  violated,  their  right  ceases.  Why, 
sir,  it  is  ever  a  rule  of  municipal  law,  and  we  use  this  merely 
as  an  illustration  of  the  great  principles  of  society,  sic  utere 
tuo  ut  alienum  non  Icedas.  So  hold  your  property  as  not  to 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  385 

injure  the  property,  still  less  the  lives  and  happiness,  of  your 
neighbors.  And  the  moment,  even  in  the  best  regulated 
communities,  there  is  in  practice  a  departure  from  this  princi- 
ple, you  may  abate  the  nuisance.  It  may  cause  loss,  but  it  is 
what  our  black  letter  gentlemen  term  damnum  absexue  inju- 
ria,  a  loss  of  which  the  law  affords  no  remedy."  Now,  for 
the  application  of  these  principles  :  "  Sir,  to  contend  that  full 
value  shall  be  paid  for  the  slaves  by  the  commonwealth,  now, 
or  at  any  future  period  of  their  emancipation,  is  to  deny  all 
right  of  action  upon  this  subject  whatsoever.  It  is  not  within 
the  financial  ability  of  a  State  to  purchase  them.  We  have 
not  the  means — the  utmost  extremity  of  taxation  would  fall 
short  of  an  adequate  treasury.  What  then  shall  be  done  ? 
We  must  endeavor  to  ascertain  some  middle  ground  of  com- 
promise between  the  rights  of  the  community  and  the  rights 
of  individuals,  some  scheme  which,  while  it  responds  to  the 
demands  of  the  people  for  the  extermination  of  the  alarming 
evils,  will  not  in  its  operations  disconcert  the  settled  institu- 
tions of  society,  or  evolve  the  slaveholder  in  pecuniary  ruiu 
and  embarrassment."  (Faulkner's  Speech,  pp.  14,  15,  16.) 

To  these  doctrines  we  call  the  serious  attention  of  the  whole 
slaveholding  population  of  our  Union,  for  all  alike  are  con- 
cerned. It  is  time,  indeed,  for  Achilles  to  rise  from  his  inglo- 
rious repose  and  buckle  on  his  armor,  when  the  enemy  are 
about  to  set  fire  to  the  fleet.  This  doctrine,  absurd  as  it  may 
seem,  in  the  practical  application  made  by  the  speaker,  will 
be  sure  to  become  the  most  popular  with  those  abolitionists  in 
Virginia,  who  have  no  slave  property  to  sacrifice.  It  is  the 
remark  of  Hobbes,  that  men  might  easily  be  brought  to  deny 
that  "  things  equal  to  the  same  are  equal  to  each  other,"  if 
their  fancied  interests  were  opposed  in  any  way  to  the  admis- 
sion of  the  axiom.  We  find  that  the  highly  obnoxious  doc- 
trine just  spoken  of,  was  not  entertained  by  the  gentleman 
33 


,......     ........ 

386  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

0 

from  Berkeley  alone,  but  was  urged  to  an  equally  offensive 
extent  by  Mr.  M'Dowell,  who  is  supposed  by  his  friends  to 
have  made  the  most  able  and  eloquent  speech  in  favor  of 
abolition.  He  says,  "  when  it  (property)  loses  its  utility, 
when  it  no  longer  contributes  to  the  personal  benefits  and 
wants  of  its  holders  in  any  equal  degree  with  the  expense  or 
the  risk,  or  the  danger  of  keeping  it,  much  more  when  it  jeo- 
pards the  security  of  the  public, — when  this  is  the  case,  then 
the  original  purpose  for  which  it  is  authorized  is  lost,  its  char- 
acter of  property  in  the  just  and  beneficial  sense  of  it  is  gone, 
and  it  may  be  regulated  without  private  injustice,  in  any 
manner  which  the  general  good  of  the  community,  by  whose 
laws  it  was  licensed,  may  require."  (McDowell's  Speech, 
see  Richmond  Whig,  24th  March,  1832.)  It  is  thus,  if  we 
may  borrow  the  justly  indignant  language  of  Mr.  Goode's  elo- 
quent and  forcible  speech,  that  "  our  property  has  been  com- 
pared to  a  nuisance  which  the  commonwealth  may  abate  at 
pleasure.  A  nation  of  souls  to  be  abated  by  the  mere  effort 
of  the  will  of  the  General  Assembly.  A  nation  of  freemen  to 
hold  their  property  by  the  precarious  tenure  of  the  precarious 
will  of  the  General  Assembly  !  and  to  reconcile  us  to  our 
condition,  we  are  assured  by  the  gentleman  from  Berkeley, 
that  the  General  Assembly,  in  the  abundance  of  its  liberality, 
is  ready  to  enter  into  a  compromise,  by  which  we  shall  be 
permitted  to  hold  our  own  property  twenty-eight  years  !  on 
condition  that  we  then  surrender  it  absolutely  and  uncondi- 
tionally. Sir,  I  cannot  but  admire  the  frankness  with  which 
these  gentlemen  have  treated  this  subject.  They  have  exhib- 
ited themselves  in  the  fullness  of  their  intentions  ;  given  us 
warning  of  their  designs  ;  and  we  now  see  in  all  its  naked- 
ness the  vanity  of  all  hope  of  compensation."  (Goode's 
Speech,  p.  29.) 

The  doctrine  of  these  gentlemen,  so  far  from  being  true  in 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  387 

its  application,  is  not  true  in  theory.  The  great  object  of  gov- 
ernment is  the  protection  of  property  ; — from  the  days  of  the 
patriarchs  down  to  the  present  time,  the  great  desideratum 
has  been  to  find  out  the  most  efficient  mode  of  protecting  pro- 
perty. There  is  not  a  government  at  this  moment  in  Christen- 
dom, whose  peculiar  practical  character  is  not  the  result  of  the 
state  of  property. 

No  government  can  exist  which  does  not  conform  to  the 
state  of  property  ;  it  cannot  make  the  latter  conform  entirely 
to  the  government ;  an  attempt  to  do  it  would  and  ought  to 
revolutionize  any  state.  The  great  difficulty  in  forming  the 
government  of  any  country  arises  almost  universally  from  the 
state  of  property,  and  the  necessity  of  making  it  to  conform  to 
that  state  ;  and  it  was  the  state  of  property  in  Virginia  which 
really  constituted  the  whole  difficulty  in  the  late  Convention. 
There  is  a  right  which  these  gentlemen  seem  likewise  to  have 
had  in  their  minds,  which  writers  on  the  law  of  nations  call  the 
right  of  eminent  or  transcendental  domain  ;  that  right  by 
which,  in  an  exigency,  the  government  or  its  agents  may  seize 
on  persons  or  property,  to  be  used  for  the  general  weal.  Now, 
upon  this  there  are  two  suggestions  which  at  once  present 
themselves.  First,  that  this  right  only  occurs  in  cases  of  real 
exigency  ;*  and  secondly,  that  the  writers  on  the  national 
law — and  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  expressly 
sanctions  the  principle — say,  that  no  property  can  be  thus 
taken  without  full  and  fair  compensation.! 

*  It  is,  then,  the  right  of  necessity,  and  may  be  defined  that  right 
•which  authorizes  the  performance  of  an  act  absolutely  necessary  for 
the  discharge  of  an  indisputable  duty.  But  private  property  must  al- 
ways be  paid  for. 

t  The  Congress  of  the  United  States,  in  the  case  of  Marigny  d'Au- 
terive,  placed  slave  property  upon  precisely  the  same  footing,  in  this 
respect,  with  all  other  kinds. 


388  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

These  gentlemen,  we  hope  to  prove  conclusively  before  fin- 
ishing, have  failed  to  show  the  exigency  ;  and  even  if  they 
have  proved  that,  they  deny  the  right  of  compensation,  and 
upon  what  principle  ?  why,  that  the  whole  State  is  not  com- 
petent to  afford  it,  and  may  therefore  justly  abate  the  nui- 
sance. And  is  it  possible  that  a  burthen,  in  this  Christian 
land,  is  most  unfeelingly  and  remorselessly  to  be  imposed 
upon  a  portion  of  the  State,  which,  by  the  very  confession  of 
the  gentlemen  who  urge  it,  could  not  be  borne  by  the  whole 
without  inevitable  ruin  ?  But  it  was  the  main  object  of  their 
speeches  to  show,  that  slave  property  is  valueless,  that  it  is  a 
burthen,  a  nuisance  to  the  owner  ;  and  they  seemed  most 
anxious  to  enlighten  the  poor  ignorant  farmers  on  this  point, 
who  hold  on  with  such  pertinacity  to  this  kind  of  property, 
which  is  inflicting  its  bitterest  sting  upon  them.  Now,  is  it 
not  enough  for  the  slaveholder  to  reply,  that  the  circumstance 
of  the  slave  bearing  the  price  of  two  hundred  dollars  in  the 
market,  is  an  evidence  of  his  value  with  every  one  acquainted 
with  the  elements  of  political  economy  ;  that,  generally  speak- 
ing, the  market  value  of  the  slave  is  even  less  than  his  real 
value  ;  for  no  one  would  like  to  own  and  manage  slaves  unless 
equally  or  more  profitable  than  other  kinds  of  investments  in 
the  same  community ;  and,  if  this  or  that  owner  may  be 
pointed  out  as  ruined  by  this  species  of  property,  might  we 
not  point  to  merchants,  mechanics,  lawyers,  doctors,  and  di- 
vines, all  of  whom  have  been  ruined  by  their  several  pursuits  ; 
and  must  all  these  employments  be  abated  as  nuisances  to 
satisfy  the  crude,  undigested  theories  of  tampering  legislators  ? 
"  It  is  remarkable,"  we  quote  the  language  of  the  author  of 
the  Letters  of  Appomattox,  "  that  this  '  nuisance'  is  more 
offensive  in  a  direct  ratio  to  its  distance  from  the  complaining 
party,  and  in  an  inverse  ratio  to  the  quantity  of  offending 
matter  in  his  neighborhood  ;  that  a  '  magazine  of  gun-powder' 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  889 

in  the  town  of  Norfolk  is  a  '  nuisance'  to  the  county  of  Berke- 
ley, and  to  all  the  people  of  the  West !  The  people  of  the 
West,  in  which  there  are  comparatively  few  slaves,  in  which 
there  never  can  be  any  great  increase  of  that  kind  of  property, 
because  their  agriculture  does  not  require  it,  and  because  in  a 
great  part  of  their  country  the  negro  race  cannot  be  acclima- 
ted— the  people  of  the  West  find  our  slave  property  in  our 
planting  country,  where  it  is  valuable,  a  'nuisance'  to  them. 
This  reverses  the  proverb,  that  men  bear  the  ills  of  others  bet- 
ter than  their  own.  I  have  known  men  to  sell  their  slave 
property  and  vest  the  proceeds  in  the  stocks,  and  become 
zealous  for  the  abolition  of  slavery.  And  it  would  be  a  mat- 
ter of  curiosity  to  ascertain  (if  it  could  be  done)  the  aggregate 
number  of  slaves,  held  by  all  the  orators  and  all  the  printers 
who  are  so  willing  to  abate  the  nuisance  of  slave  property  held 
by  other  people.  I  suspect  the  census  would  be  very  short." 
Letters  of  Appomattox  to  the  people  of  Virginia. 

The  fact  is,  it  is  always  a  most  delicate  and  dangerous  task 
for  one  set  of  people  to  legislate  for  another,  without  any 
community  of  interest.  It  is  sure  to  destroy  the  great  principle 
of  responsibility,  and  in  the  end  to  lay  the  weaker  interest  at 
the  mercy  of  the  stronger.  It  subverts  the  very  end  for  which 
all  governments  are  established,  and  becomes  intolerable,  and 
consequently  against  the  fundamental  rights  of  man,  whether 
prohibited  by  the  constitution  or  not. 

If  a  convention  of  the  whole  State  of  Virginia  were  called, 
and  in  due  form  the  right  of  slave  property  were  abolished  by 
the  votes  of  Western  Virginia  alone,  does  any  one  think  that 
Eastern  Virginia  would  be  bound  to  yield  to  the  decree  ? 
Certainly  not.  The  strong  and  unjust  man  in  a  state  of  na- 
ture robs  the  weaker,  and .  you  establish  government  to  pre- 
vent this  oppression.  Now,  only  sanction  the  doctrine  of 
Virginia  orators,  let  one  interest  in  the  government  (the  West) 
33* 


390  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

rob  another  at  pleasure  (the  East) ;  and  is  there  any  man 
who  can  fail  to  see  that  government  is  systematically  produc- 
ing that  very  oppression  for  which  it  is  intended  to  remedy, 
and  for  which  alone  it  is  established  ?  In  forming  the  late 
Constitution  of  Virginia,  the  East  objected  to  the  "  white  basis 
principle,"  upon  the  very  grounds  that  it  would  enable  West- 
ern to  oppress  Eastern  Virginia,  through  the  medium  of  slave 
property.  The  most  solemn  asseverations  of  a  total  unwil- 
lingness, on  the  part  of  the  West,  to  meddle  with  or  touch 
the  slave  population,  beyond  the  rightful  and  equitable  de- 
mands of  revenue,  were  repeatedly  made  by  their  orators.  And 
now,  what  has  the  lapse  of  two  short  years  developed  ?  Why, 
that  the  West,  unmindful  of  former  professions,  and  regard- 
less of  the  eternal  principles  of  justice,  is  urging  on  an  inva- 
sion and  final  abolition  of  that  kind  of  property  which  it  was 
solemnly  pledged  to  protect  !  Is  it  possible  that  gentlemen 
can  have  reflected  upon  the  consequences  which  even  the 
avowal  of  such  doctrines  are  calculated  to  produce  ?  Are  they 
conciliatory  ?  Can  they  be  taken  kindly  by  the  East  ?  Is 
it  not  degrading  for  freemen  to  stand  quailing  with  the  fear  of 
losing  that  property  which  they  have  been  accumulating  for 
ages,  to  stand  waiting  in  fearful  anxiety  for  the  capricious  edict 
of  the  West,  which  may  say  to  one  man,  "  Sir,  you  must  give 
up  your  property,  although  you  have  amassed  it  under  the 
guarantee  of  the  laws  and  constitution  of  your  State  and  of  the 
United  States  ;"  and  to  another,  who  is  near  him,  and  has  an 
equal  amount  of  property  of  a  different  description,  and  has 
no  more  virtue  and  no  more  conscience  than  the  slaveholder, 
"  you  may  hold  yours,  because  we  do  not  yet  consider  it  a 
'  nuisance'  ?"  This  is  language  which  cannot  fail  to  awaken 
the  people  to  a  sense  of  their  danger.  These  doctrines,  when- 
ever announced  in  debate,  have  a  tendency  to  disorganize  and 
unhinge  the  condition  of  society,  and  to  produce  uncertainty 


f  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLA  VERT.  391 

and  alarm  ;*  to  create  revulsions  of  capital  ;  to  cause  the  land 
of  Old  Virginia,  and  real  source  of  wealth,  to  be  abandoned ; 
and  her  white  wealthy  population  to  flee  the  State,  and  seek 
an  asylum  in  a  land  where  they"  will  be  protected  in  the  en- 
joyment of  the  fruits  of  their  industry.  In  fine,  we  would  say, 
these  doctrines  are  '  nuisances,'  and  if  we  were  disposed  to  re- 
taliate, would  add  that  they  ought  to  be  '  abated.'  We  will 
close  our  remarks  on  this  dangerous  doctrine,  by  calling  upon 
Western  Virginia  and  the  non-slavehelders  of  Eastern  Virgi- 
nia, not  to  be  allured  by  the  syren  song.  It  is  as  delusive  as 
it  may  appear  fascinating  ;  all  the  sources  of  wealth  and  de- 
partments of  industry,  all  the  great  interests  of  society,  are 
really  interwoven  with  one  another — they  form  an  indissolu- 
ble chain  ;  a  blow  at  any  part  quickly  vibrates  through  the 
whole  length — the  destruction  of  one  interest  involves  anoth- 
er. Destroy  agriculture,  destroy  tillage,  and  the  ruin  of  the 
farmer  will  draw  down  ruin  upon  the  mechanic,  the  mer- 
chant, the  sailor  and  the  manufacturer — they  must  all  flee  to- 
gether from  the  land  of  desolation. 

We  hope  we  have  now  satisfactorily  proved  the  impractica- 
bility of  sending  off  the  whole  of  our  slave  population,  or  even 
the  annual  increase  ;  and  we  think  we  have  been  enabled  to 
do  this,  by  pointing  out  only  one-half  the  difficulties  which 
attend  the  scheme.  We  have  so  far  confined  our  attention  to 
ths  expense  and  difficulty  of  purchasing  the  slaves,  and  send- 
ing them  across  the  ocean.  We  have  now  to  look  a  little  to 
the  recipient  or  territory  to  which  the  blacks  are  to  be  sent  ; 

*  We  look  upon  these  doctrines  as  calculated  to  produce  precisely 
the  same  results  as  are  produced  by  the  government  of  Turkey,  which, 
by  rendering  property  insecure,  has  been  able  to  arrest,  and  perma- 
nently to  repress,  the  prosperity  of  the  fairest  and  most  fertile  portions 
of  the  globe. 


392  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

and  if  we  know  any  thing  of  the  history  and  nature  of  colo- 
nization, we  shall  be  completely  upheld  in  the  assertion,  that 
the  difficulties  on  this  score  are  just  as  great  and  insurmount- 
able as  those  which  we  have  shown  to  be  attendant  on  the 
purchase  and  deportation.  We  shall  be  enabled  to  prove,  if 
we  may  use  the  expression,  a  double  impracticability  attend- 
ant on  all  these  schemes. 

The  Impossibility  of  Colonizing  the  Blacks. — The  whole 
subject  of  colonization  is  much  more  difficult  and  intricate  than 
is  generally  imagined,  and  the  difficulties  are  often  very  dif- 
ferent from  what  would,  on  slight  reflection,  be  anticipated. 
They  are  of  three  kinds — physical,  moral,  and  national.  The 
former  embraces  unhealthy  climate  or  want  of  proper  season- 
ing ;  a  difficulty  of  procuring  subsistence  and  the  convenien- 
ces of  life  ;  ignorance  of  the  adaptations  and  character  of  the 
soils  ;  want  of  habitations,  and  the  necessity  of  living  togeth- 
er in  multitudes  for  the  purposes  of  defence,  whilst  purposes 
of  agriculture  require  that  they  should  live  as  dispersed  as 
possible.  The  moral  difficulties  arise  from  a  want  of  adapta- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  new  colonists  to  their  new  situation, 
want  of  conformity  in  habits,  manners,  tempers,  and  disposi- 
tions, producing  a  heterogeneous  mass  of  population,  unce- 
mented  and  unharinonizing.  Lastly,  the  difficulties  of  a 
national  character  embrace  all  the  causes  of  altercation  and 
rupture  between  the  colonists  and  neighboring  tribes  or 
nations  ;  all  these  dangers,  difficulties  and  hardships,  are  much 
greater  than  generally  believed.  Every  new  colony  requires 
the  most  constant  attention,  the  most  cautious  and  judicious 
management,  in  both  the  number  and  character  of  the  emi- 
grants, a  liberal  supply  of  both  capital  and  provisions,  togeth- 
er with  a  most  watchful  and  paternal  government  on  the  part 
of  the  mother  country,  which  may  defend  it  against  the  incur- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  393 

sions  and  depredations  of  warlike  or  savage  neighbors.  Hence, 
the  very  slow  progress  made  by  all  colonies  in  the  first  settle- 
ments. 

The  history  of  colonization  is  well  calculated  of  itself  to 
dissipate  all  the  splendid  visions  which  our  chimerical  philan- 
thropists have  indulged,  in  regard  to  its  efficacy  in  draining 
off  a  redundant  or  noxious  population.  The  rage  for  emigra- 
tion to  the  New  World,  discovered  by  Columbus,  was  at  first 
very  considerable  ;  the  brilliant  prospects  which  were  present- 
ed to  the  view  of  the  Spaniards,  of  realizing  fortunes  in  the 
abundant  mines,  and  on  the  rich  soils  of  the  islands  and  the 
continent,  enticed  many  at  first  to  leave  their  homes  in  search 
of  wealth,  happiness,  and  distinction  ;  and  what  was  the 
consequence  ?  "  The  numerous  hardships  with  which  the 
members  of  infant  colonies  have  to  struggle,"  says  Robertson, 
"  the  diseases  of  unwholesome  climates,  fatal  to  the  constitu- 
tions of  Europeans  ;  the  difficulty  of  bringing  a  country 
covered  with  forests  into  culture  ;  the  want  of  hands  neces- 
sary for  labor  in  some  provinces,  and  the  slow  reward  of 
industry  in  all,  unless  where  the  accidental  discovery  of  mines 
enriched  a  few  fortunate  adventurers,  were  evils  immensely 
felt  and  magnified.  Discouraged  by  the  view  of  these,  the 
spirit  of  migration  was  so  much  damped,  that  sixty  years 
after  the  discovery  of  the  New  World,  the  number  of  Span- 
iards in  all  its  provinces  is  computed  not  to  have  exceeded 
15,000  !"*  Even  these  few  were  settled  at  an  expense  of  life* 
both  to  the  emigrants  and  the  natives,  which  is  really  shocking 
to  the  feelings  of  humanity  ;  and  we  cannot  peruse  the  ac- 
counts of  the  conquests  of  Mexico  and  Peru,  without  feeling 
that  the  race  destroyed  was  equal,  in  moral  worth  at  least,  to 
their  destroyers. 

In  the  settlement  of  Virginia,  begun  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
*  Robertson's  America,  vol.  2,  p.  151. 


394  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVEHY. 

and  established  by  Lord  Delaware,  three  attempts  completely 
failed  ;  nearly  half  of  the  first  colony  was  destroyed  by  the 
savages,  and  the  rest,  consumed  and  worn  down  by  fatigue 
and  famine,  deserted  the  country  and  returned  home  in  de- 
spair. The  second  colony  was  cut  off  to  a  man,  in  a  manner 
unknown  ;  but  they  were  supposed  to  have  been  destroyed 
by  the  Indians.  The  third  experienced  the  same  dismal  fate  ; 
and  the  remains  of  the  fourth,  after  it  had  been  reduced  by 
famine  and  disease,  in  the  course  of  six  months,  from  five 
hundred  to  sixty  persons,  were  returning  in  a  famished  and 
desperate  condition  to  England,  when  they  were  met  in  the 
mouth  of  the  Chesapeake,  by  Lord  Delaware,  with  a  squad- 
ron loaded  with  provisions,  and  every  thing  for  their  relief 
and  defence.*  The  first  puritans  and  settlers,  in  like  manner 
suffered  "  woes  unnumbered," — nearly  half  perished  by  want, 
scurvy,  and  the  severity  of  the  climate. 

The  attempts  to  settle  New  Holland,  have  presented  a  me- 
lancholy and  affecting  picture  of  the  extreme  hardships  which 
infant  colonies  have  to  struggle  with,  before  their  produce  is 
even  equal  to  the  support  of  the  colonists.  The  establish- 
ment of  colonies,  too,  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  Russian  do- 
minions, has  been  attended  with  precisely  the  same  difficulties 
and  hardships. 

After  this  very  brief  general  review  of  the  history  of  mod- 
ern colonization,  we  will  now  proceed  to  examine  into  the 
prospects  of  colonizing  our  blacks  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  in 
such  numbers  as  to  lessen  those  left  behind.  And  in  the  first 
place  we  will  remark,  that  almost  all  countries,  especially 
those  in  southern  and  tropical  latitudes,  are  extremely  unfa- 
yorable  to  life  when  first  cleared  and  cultivated.  Almost  the 
whole  territory  of  the  United  States  and  South  America,  offer 

*  Malthus  on  population,  given  upon  the  authority  of  both  Burke's 
and  Robertson's  Virginia. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  395 

•^ 

a  conclusive  illustration  of  this  fact.  We  are  daily  witnessing, 
in  the  progress  of  tillage,  in  our  country,  the  visitation  of 
diseases  of  the  most  destructive  kind,  over  regions  hitherto 
entirely  exempt  ;  our  bilious  fevers,  for  example,  seem  to 
travel,  in  a  great  measure,  with  the  progress  of  opening,  clear- 
ing, and  draining  of  the  country.  Now,  when  we  turn  our 
attention  to  Africa,  on  which  continent  all  agree  that  we  must 
colonize,  if  at  all,  we  find  almost  the  whole  continent  possess- 
ing an  insalubrious  climate,  under  the  most  favorable  circum- 
stances ;  and,  consequently,  we  may  expect  this  evil  will  be 
enhanced  during  the  incipient  stages  of  society  at  any  given 
point,  while  the  progress  of  clearing,  draining,  and  tilling  is 
going  forward.  All  the  travellers  through  Africa  agree  in 
their  descriptions  of  the  general  insalubrity  of  the  climate. 
Park  and  Buffon  agree  in  stating,  that  longevity  is  very  rare 
among  the  negroes.  At  forty  they  are  described  as  wrinkled 
and  gray  haired,  and  few  of  them  survive  the  age  of  fifty-five 
or  sixty.  A  Shangalla  woman,  says  Bruce,  at  twenty-two,  is 
more  wrinkled  and  deformed  by  age,  than  a  European  at  six- 
ty. This  short  duration  of  life  is  attributable  to  the  climate  ; 
for  in  looking  over  the  returns  of  the  census  in  our  country, 
we  find  a  much  larger  proportional  number  of  cases  of  long- 
evity among  the  blacks  than  the  whites.  "  If  accurate  regis- 
ters of  mortality,"  says  Malthus,  (and  no  one  is  more  indefati- 
gable in  his  researches  or  more  capable  of  drawing  accurate 
conclusions,)  "  were  kept  among  those  nations,  (African,)  I 
have  little  doubt  that,  including  the  mortality  of  wars,  one  in 
seventeen  or  eighteen,  at  least,  dies  annually,  instead  of  one  in 
thirty-four  or  thirty-six,  as  in  the  generality  of  European 
states.''*  The  sea  coast  is  described  as  being  generally  much 
more  unhealthy  than  the  interior.  "  Perhaps  it  is  on  this 
account  chiefly,"  says  Park,  "that  the  interior  countries 
*  See  Malthus  on  Population,  Book  1,  1.  8. 


396  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

abound  more  with  inhabitants  than  the  maritime  districts."* 
The  deleterious  effects  of  African  climate,  are  of  course  much 
greater  upon  those  accustomed  to  different  latitudes  and  not 
yet  acclimated.  It  is  melancholy,  indeed,  to  peruse  the  dread- 
ful hardships  and  unexampled  mortality  attendant  upon  those 
companies  which  have,  from  time  to  time,  actuated  by  the 
most  praiseworthy  views,  penetrated  into  the  interior  of 
Africa. 

It  is  difficult  to  say,  which  has  presented  the  most  obstacles 
to  the  inquisitive  traveller,  the  suspicion  and  barbarity  of  the 
natives,  or  the  dreadful  insalubrity  of  the  climate.  Now,  it  is 
to  this  continent,  the  original  home  of  our  blacks,  to  this  de- 
structive climate,  we  propose  to  send  the  slave  of  our  country, 
after  the  lapse  of  ages  has  completely  inured  him  to  our  colder 
and  more  salubrious  continent.  It  is  true,  that  a  territory 
has  already  been  secured  for  the  Colonization  Society  of  this 
country,  which  is  said  to  enjoy  an  unusually  healthful  climate. 
Granting  that  this  may  be  the  case,  still  when  we  come  to 
examine  into  the  capacity  of  the  purchased  territory  for  the 
reception  of  emigrants,  we  find  that  it  only  amounts  to  about 
10,000  square  miles,  not  a  seventh  of  the  superfices  of  Virgi- 
nia, When  other  sites  are  fixed  upon,  we  may  not,  and  can- 
not expect  to  be  so  fortunate  ;  are  not  the  most  healthy  dis- 
tricts in  Africa  the  most  populous,  according  to  Park  and  all 
travellers  ?  Will  not  these  comparatively  powerful  nations,  in 
all  probability,  relinquish  their  territory  with  great  reluctance  ? 
WTill  not  our  lot  be  consequently  cast  on  barren  sands  or  amid 
the  pestilential  atmosphere  ;  and  then  what  exaggerated  tales 
and  false  statements  must  be  made,  if  we  would  reconcile  the 
poor  blacks  to  a  change  of  country  pregnant  with  their 
fate? 

*  See  Park's  Travels  in  Africa,  p.  193,  New  York  Edition. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON   SLAVERY.  39*7 

But  we  believe  that  the  very  laudable  zeal  of  many  consci- 
entious philanthropists  has  excited  an  overweening  desire  to 
make  our  colony  in  Liberia,  in  every  point  of  view,  appear 
greatly  superior  to  what  it  is.  We  know  the  disposition  of  all 
travellers  to  exaggerate  ;  we  know  the  benevolent  feelings  of 
the  human  heart,  which  prompts  us  to  gratify  and  minister  to 
the  desires  and  sympathies  of  those  around  us,  and  we  know 
that  philanthropic  schemes,  emancipation  and  colonization  so- 
cieties, now  occupy  the  public  mind,  and  receive  the  largest 
share  of  public  applause.  Under  these  circumstances  we  are 
not  to  wonder  if  coloring  should  sometimes  impair  the  state- 
ments of  those  who  have  visited  the  colony  ;  for  ourselves,  we 
may  be  too  sceptical,  but  are  rather  disposed  to  judge  from 
facts  which  are  acknowledged  by  all,  than  from  general  state- 
ments from  officers  and  interested  agents.  In  1819,  two  agents 
were  sent  to  Africa  to  survey  the  coast  and  make  a  selection  of 
a  suitable  situation  for  a  colony ;  in  their  passage  home  in  1820, 
one  died.  In  the  same  year,  1820,  the  Elizabeth  was  charter- 
ed and  sent  out  with  three  agents  and  eighty  emigrants.  All 
three  of  the  agents  and  twenty  of  the  emigrants  died,  a  propor- 
tional mortality  greater  than  in  the  middle  passage,  which  has 
so  justly  shocked  the  human  feelings  of  mankind,  and  much 
greater  than  that  occasioned  by  that  dreadful  plague  (the  Cho- 
lera) which  is  now  clothing  our  land  in  mourning  and  causing 
our  citizens  to  flee  in  every  direction  to  avoid  impending  de- 
struction. In  the  spring  of  1821,  four  new  agents  were  sent 
out,  of  whom  one  returned  sick,  one  died  in  August,  one  in  Sep- 
tember, and  we  know  not  what  became  of  the  fourth.*  It  is 
agreed  on  all  hands,  that  there  is  a  seasoning  necessary,  and 

*  These  facts  we  have  stated  upon  the  authority  of  Mr.  Carey,  of 
Philadelphia,  who  has  given  us  an  interesting,  but  I  fear  too  flattering 
account  of  the  colony,  in  a  series-  of  letters  addressed  to  the   Hon. 
Charles  F.  Mercer. 
34 


398  PROFESSOR  DEW   ON  SLAVERY. 

a  formidable  fever  to  be  encountered,  before  the  colonies  can 
enjoy  tolerable  health.  Mr.  Ashmun,  who  afterwards  fell  a 
victim  to  the  climate,  insisted  that  the  night  air  of  Liberia  was 
free  from  all  noxious  effects  ;  and  yet  we  find  that  the  emi- 
grants carried  by  the  Valador  to  Liberia,  a  year  or  two  since, 
are  said  to  have  fared  well,  losing  only  two,  in  consequence  of 
every  precaution  having  been  taken  against  the  night  air, 
while  the  most  dreadful  mortality  destroyed  those  of  the  Caro- 
linian, which  went  out  nearly  cotemporaneously  with  the  Va- 
lador. The  letter  of  Mr.  Reyrolds,  marked  G,  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  Fifteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  American  Coloni- 
zation Society,  instructs  us  in  the  proper  method  of  preserving 
health  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  in  spite  of  the  flattering 
accounts  and  assurances  of  agents  and  philanthropists,  we 
should  be  disposed  to  take  warning  from  these  salutary  hints. 
The  following  are  some  of  them : 

"  1st.  On  no  account  to  suffer  any  of  the  crew  to  be  out  of 
the  ship  at  sunset. 

"  2d.  To  have  a  sail  stretched  on  the  windward  side  of  the 
vessel ;  and  an  awning  was  also  provided,  which  extended  over 
the  poop  and  the  whole  main  deck,  to  defend  the  crew  from 
the  night  air. 

"  3d.  The  night  watch  was  encouraged  to  smoke  tobacco. 

"4th.  To  distribute  French  brandy  to  the  crew  whilst  in 
port,  in  lieu  of  rum.  (The  editor  of  the  report  modestly  re- 
commends strong  coffee.)  The  crew,  on  rising,  were  served 
with  a  liberal  allowance  of  strong  coffee,  before  commencing 
their  day's  work. 

"  The  result  was,  that  the  ships  on  each  side  of  the  Cam- 
bridge lost  the  greater  part  of  their  crew  ;  and  not  one  man  of 
her  crew  were  seriously  unwell."  (Fifteenth  Annual  Report, 
p.  54,  published  in  Georgetown,  1832.) 

We  have  said  euough  to  show  that  the  contiguance  of  Af- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON   SLAVERY.  399 

rica,  and  its  coasts  particularly,  are  extremely  unhealthy — that 
the  natives  themselves  are  not  long  lived — and  that  unaccli- 
mated  foreigners  are  in  most  imminent  danger-     That  there 
may  be  some  healthy  points  on  the  sea  shore,  and  salubrious 
districts  in  the  interior,  and  that  Liberia  may  be  fortunately 
one  of  them,   we  are  even   willing  to  admit — but  then  we 
know  that  generally  the  most  insalubrious  portion  will  fall  in- 
to our  possession,  because  those  of  an  opposite  character  are 
already  too  densely  populated  to  be  deserted  by  the  natives — • 
and  consequently,  let  us  view  the  subject  as  we  please,  we  have 
this  mighty  evil  of  unhealthy  climate  to  overcome.     We  have 
seen  already,  in  the  past  history  of  our  colony,  that  the  slight- 
est blunder,  in  landing  on  an  unhealthy  coast,  in  exposure  to 
a  deadly  night  air,  or  in  neglecting  the  necessary  precautions 
during  the  period  of  acclimating,  has  proved  most  frightfully 
fatal  to  both  black  and  whites.     Suppose  now,  that  instead  of 
the  one  or  two  hundred  sent  by  the  Colonization  Society,  Vir- 
ginia should  actually  send  out  six  thousand — or  if  we  extend 
our  views  to  the  whole  United  States,  that  sixty  thousand 
should  be  annually  exported,  accompanied  of  course  by  some 
hundreds  of  whites,  what  an  awful  fatality  might  we  not  occa- 
sionally expect?     The  chance   for  blundering  would  be  infin- 
itely increased,  and  if  some  ships  might  fortunately  distribute 
their  cargoes  with  the  loss  of  a  few  lives,  others  again  might 
lose  all  their  whites  and  a  fourth  or  more  of  the  blacks,  as  we 
know  has  already  happened ;  and  although  this  fatality  might 
arise  from  blunder  or  accident,  yet  would  it  strike  the  imagi- 
nation of  men — and  that  which   may  be  kept  comparatively 
concealed  now,  would,  when  the  number  of  emigrants  swelled 
to  such  multitudes,  produce  alarm  and  consternation.     We 
look  confidently  to  the  day,  if  this  wild  scheme  should  be  per- 
severed in  for  a  few  years,  when  the  poor  African  slave,  on 
bended  knee,  might  implore  a  remission  of  that  fatal  sentence 
which  would  send  him  to  the  land  of  his  forefathers. 


400  PROFESSOR  DEW   ON  SLAVERY. 

^ 

But  the  fact  is,  that  all  climates  will  prove  fatal  to  emigrants 
who  come  out  in  too  great  crowds,  whether  they  are  naturally 
unhealthy  or  not.  One  of  the  greatest  attempts  at  coloniza- 
tion in  modern  times,  was  the  effort  of  the  French  to  plant  at 
once  12, 000  "emigrants  on  the  coast  of  Guiana.  The  conse- 
quence was,  that  in  a  very  short  time  10,000  of  them  lost 
their  lives  in  all  the  horrors  of  despair,  2,000  returned  to 
France,  the  scheme  failed,  and  25,000,000  of  francs,  says  Ray- 
nal,  were  totally  lost.  Seventy-five  thousand  Christians,  says 
Mr.  Eaton  in  his  account  of  the  Turkish  empire,  were  expelled 
by  Russia  from  the  Crimea,  and  forced  to  inhabit  the  country 
deserted  by  the  Nogai  Tartars,  and  in  a  few  years  only  7,001) 
of  them  remained.  In  like  manner,  if  6,000,  or  much  more? 
if  60,000  negroes,  with  careless  and  filthy  habits,  were  annu- 
ally sent  to  Africa,  we  could  not  calculate,  for  the  first  one  or 
two  years,  upon  less  than  the  death  of  one-half  or  perhaps 
three-fourths  ;  and,  repugnant  as  the  assertion  may  be  to  the 
feelings  of  benevolence,  we  have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  that 
nothing  but  a  most  unparalleled  mortality  among  the  emi- 
grants would  enable  us  to  support  the  colony  for  even  a  year 
or  two.  Aristotle  was  of  opinion,  that  the  keeping  of  5,000 
soldiers  in  idleness  would  ruin  an  empire.  If  the  brilliant  an- 
ticipations of  our  colonization  friends  shall  be  realized,  and  the 
day  actually  arrives,  when  60,000,  or  even  6,000  blacks  can 
be  annually  landed  in  health  up'on  the  cost  of  Africa,  then  will 
the  United  States,  or  broken  down  Virginia,  be  obliged  to 
support  an  empire  in  idleness.  "  The  first  establishment  of  a 
new  colony,"  says  Malthus,  "  generally, presents  an  instance  of 
a  country  peopled  considerably  beyond  its  actual  produce;  and 
the  natural  consequence  seems  to  be,  that  this  population,  if 
not  amply  supplied  by  the  mother  country,  should,  at  the  com- 
mencement, be  diminished  to  the  level  of  the  first  scanty  pro- 
ductions, and  not  begin  permanently  to  increase  till  the  re- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  OK  SLAVERY.  401 

maining  numbers  had  so  far  cultivated  the  soil  as  to  make  it 
yield  a  quantity  of  food  more  than  sufficient  for  their  own  sup- 
port, and  which  consequently  they  could  divide  with  a  family. 
The  frequent  failures  of  new  colonies  tend  strongly  to  show 
the  order  of  precedence  between  food  and  population."*  It 
is  for  this  reason  the  colonies  so  slowly  advance  at  first,  and  it 
becomes  necessary  to  feed  (if  we  may  so  express  ourselves) 
with  extreme  caution,  and  with  limited  numbers,  in  the  begin- 
ning. But  a  few  additional  mouths  will  render  support  from 
the  mother  country  necessary.  If  this  state  of  things  con- 
tinues for  a  short  time,  you  make  the  colony  a  great  pauper 
establishment,  and  generate  all  those  habits  of  idleness  and 
worthlessness  which  will  ever  characterize  a  people  dependent 
on  the  bounty  of  others  for  their  subsistence.  If  Virginia  should 
send  out  6,000  emigrants  to  Africa,  and  much  more,  if  the 
United  States  should  send  out  60,000,  the  whole  colony  would 
inevitably  perish,  if  the  wealth  of  the  mother  country  was  not 
exhausted  for  their  supply.  Suppose  a  member  in  Congress 
should  propose  to  send  out  an  army  of  60,000  troops,  and 
maintain  them  on  the  coast  of  Africa ;  would  not  every  sen- 
sible man  see  at  once  that  the  thing  would  be  impracticable, 
if  even  the  existence  of  our  country  depended  upon  it?— it 
•would  ruin  the  greatest  empire  on  the  globe — ~and  yet,  strange 
to  tell,  the  philanthropists  of  Virginia  are  seriously  urging  her 
to  attempt  that  which  would  every  year  impose  upon  her  a  bur- 
then proportionally  greater  than  this  ! 

If  any  man  will  for  a  moment  revert  to  the  history  of  Liberia, 
which  has  been  as  flourishing  or  even  more  flourishing  than 
similar  colonies,  there  will  be  seen  at  once  enough  to  convince 
the  sceptical  of  the  truth  of  .this  assertion.  What  says  Mr.  Ash- 
mun,  perhaps  the  most  intelligent  and  most  judicious  of  colonial 

*  Malthus  on  Population,  vol.  2,  pp.  140,  141. 
34* 


402  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

agents  ?  "  If  rice  grew  spontaneously,"  said  he,  "  and  covered 
the  country,  yet  it  is  possible  by  sending  few  or  none  able  to 
reap  and  clean  it,  to  starve  10,000  helpless  children  and  infirm 
old  people  in  the  midst  of  plenty.  Rice  does  not  grow  spon- 
taneously, however;  nor  can  any  thing  necessary  for  the  sub- 
sistence of  the  human  species  be  procured  here  without  the 
sweat  of  the  brow.  Clothing,  tools,  and  building  materials  are 
much  dearer  here  than  in  America.  But  send  out  emigrants, 
laboring  men  and  their  families  only,  or  laborious  men  and 
their  families,  accompanied  only  with  their  natural  proportion 
of  inemcients  ;  and  with  the  ordinary  blessings  of  God,  you 
may  depend  on  their  causing  you  a  light  expense  in  Liberia," 
&c.  Again,  "  if  such  persons,  (those  who  cannot  work,)  are 
to  be  supported  by  American  funds,  why  not  keep  them  in 
America,  where  they  can  do  something  by  picking  cotton  and 
stemming  tobacco,  towards  supporting  themselves  ?  I  know 
that  nothing  is  effectually  done  in  colonizing  this  country,  till 
the  colony's  own  resources  can  sustain  its  own,  and  a  consid- 
erable annual  increase  of  population"  Here  then  are  state- 
ments from  one  of  the  most  zealous  and  enthusiastic  in  the 
cause  of  colonization,  one  who  has  sacrificed  his  life  in  the 
business,  which  clearly  show,  that  the  Colonization  Society, 
with  its  very  limited  means,  has  ever  supplied  the  colony  with 
emigrants.  What  then  might  not  be  expected  from  the  tre- 
mendous action  of  the  State  and  General  Government  on  this 
subject?  they  would  raise  up  a  pauper  establishment,  which, 
we  conscientiously  believe,  would  require  the  disposable  wealth 
of  the  rest  of  the  world  to  support,  and  the  thousands  of  .emi- 
grants who  would  be  sent,  so  far  from  being  laborious  men, 
would  be  the  most  idle  and  worthless  of  a  race,  who  only  de- 
sire liberty  because  they  regard  it  as  an  exemption  from  lat>or 
and  toil.  Every  man,  too,  at  all  conversant  with  the  subject, 
knows  that  such  alone  are  the  slaves  which  a  kind  master  will 


* 

*  .          .  * 

PROFESSOR  DEW  OX   SLAVERY. '  403 

ever  consent  to  sell,  to  be  carried  to  a  distant  land.  Sixty 
thousand  emigrants  per  annum  to  the  United  States,  would 
even  now  sink  the  wages  of  labor,  and  embarrass  the  whole 
of  our  industrious  classes,  although  we  have  at  this  moment 
lands  capable  of  supporting  millions  more  when  gradually 
added  to  our  population. 

The  Irish  emigrants  to  Great  Britain,  have  already  begun 
to  produce  disastrous  effects.  *'  I  am  firmly  persuaded,"  says 
Mr.  McCulloch, "  that  nothing  so  deeply  injurious  to  the  char- 
acter and  habits  of  our  people,  has  ever  occurred;  as  the  late 
extraordinary  influx  of  Irish  laborers.  If  another  bias  be  not 
given  to  the  current  of  emigration,  Great  Britain  will  necessa- 
rily continue  to  be  a  grand  outlet  for  the  pauper  population  of 
Ireland,  nor  will  the  tide  of  beggary  and  degradation  cease  to 
flow,  until  the  plague  of  poverty  has  spread  its  ravages  over 
both  divisions  of  empire."*  Where,  then,  in  the  wide  world, 
can  we  find  a  fulcrum  upon  which  to  place  our  mighty  lever 
of  colonization  ?  nowhere  !  we  repeat  it,  nowhere !  unless  we 
condemn  emigrants  to  absolute  starvation.  Sir  Josiah  Childe, 
who  lived  in  an  age  of  comparative  ignorance,  could  well  have 
instructed  our  modern  philanthropists  in  the  true  principles  of 
colonization.  "  Such  as  our  employment  is"  says  he,  "  so  will 
our  people  be  ;  and  if  we  should  imagine  we  have  in  England 
employment  but  for  one  hundred  people,  and  we  have 'born 
and  bred  (or  he  might  have  added  brought)  amongst  us  one 
hundred  and  fifty— fifty  must  flee  away  from  us,  or  starve,  or  be 
hanged  to  prevent  it."f  And  so  say  we  in  regard  to  our  colo- 
nization ;  if  our  new  colony  cannot  absorb  readily  more  than 
one  or  two  hundred  per  annum,  and  we  send  them  6,000  or 
60,000,  the  surplus  "  must  either  flee  away,  or  starve,  or  be 

*  McCulloch's  Wealth  of  Nations,  4th  vol.  pp.  1-S4,  66.     Edinburgh 
Edition, 
t  Sir  Josiah  Childe's  Discourse  on  Trade. 


404  PROFESSOR  DEW  OX   SLAVERY. 

hanged,"  or  be  fed  by  the  mother  country,  (which  is  impos- 
sible.) 

So  far  we  have  been  attending  principally  to  the  difficulties 
of  procuring  subsistence  ;  but  the  habits  and  moral  character 
of  our  slaves  prevent  others  of  equal  importance  and  magni- 
tude. Dr.  Franklin  says  that  one  of  the  reasons  why  we  see 
so  many  fruitless  attempts  to  settle  colonies  at  an  immense 
public  and  private  expense  by  several  of  the  powers  of  Europe, 
is  that  moral  and  mechanical  habits  adapted  to  the  mother 
country,  are  frequently  not  so  to  the  new  settled  one,  and  to 
external  events,  many  of  which  are  unforeseen ;  that  it  is  to  be 
remarked  that  none  of  the  English  colonies  became  any  way 
considerable,  till  the  necessary  manners  were  born  and  grew 
up  in  the  country.  Now  with  what  peculiar  and  overwhelm- 
ing force  does  this  remark  apply  to  our  colonization  of  liberated 
blacks  ?  We  are  to  send  out  thousands  of  these,  taken  from 
a  state  of  slavery  and  ignorance,  unaccustomed  to  guide  and 
direct  themselves,  void  of  all  the  attributes  of  free  agents,  with 
dangerous  notions  of  liberty  and  idleness,  to  elevate  them  at 
once  to  the  condition  of  freemen,  and  invest  them  with  the 
power  of  governing  an  empire,  which  will  require  more  wis- 
dom, more  prudence,  and  at  the  same  time  more  firmness,  than 
ever  government  required  before.  We  are  enabled  to  support 
our  position  by  a  quotation  from  an  eloquent  supporter  of  the 
American  colonization  scheme.  "  Indeed,"  said  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Bacon,  at  the  last  meeting  of  the  American  Colonization  So- 
ciety, "  it  is  something  auspicious,  that  in  the  earlier  stages  of 
our  undertaking,  there  has  been  a  general  rush  of  emigration 
to  the  colony.  In  any  single  year  since  Cape  Montserado  was 
purchased,  the  influx  of  a  thousand  emigrants  might  have 
been  fatal  to  our  enterprise.  The  new-comers  into  any  com- 
munity must  always  be  a  minority,  else  every  arrival  is  a  revo- 
lution ;  they  must  be  a  decided  minority,  easily  absorbed  in 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  405 

the  system  and  mingled  with  the  mass,  else  the  community 
is  constantly  liable  to  convulsion.  Let  10,000  foreigners,  rude 
and  ignorant,  be  landed  at  once  in  this  district  (of  Columbia), 
and  what  would  be  the  result?  Why  you  must  have  an  arm- 
ed force  here  to  keep  the  peace — so  one  thousand  now  landing 
at  once  in  our  colony,  might  be  its  ruin."* 

The  fact  is,  the  true  and  enlightened  friends  of  colonization 
must  reprobate  all  those  chimerical  schemes  proposing  to  de- 
port anything  like  the  increase  of  one  State,  and  more  particu- 
larly of  the  whole  United  States.  The  difficulty  just  explained, 
has  already  been  severely  felt  in  Liberia,  though  hitherto  sup- 
plied very  scantily  with  emigrants,  and  those  generally  the 
roost  exemplary  of  the  free  blacks  ;  thus,  in  1 828,  it  was  the  de- 
cided opinion  of  Mr.  Ashmun,  "  that  for  at  least  two  years  to 
come,  a  much  more  discriminating  selection  of  settlers  must 
be  made,  than  ever  has  been — even  in  the  first  and  second  ex- 
peditions by  the  Elizabeth  and  Nautilus,  in  1820  and  '21,  oT 
that  the  prosperity  of  the  colony  will  inevitably  and  rapidly 
decline"  Now,  when  to  all  these  difficulties  we  add  the  pros- 
pect of  frequent  wars  with  the  natives  of  Africa,!  the  great  ex- 
pense we  must  incur  to  support  the  colony,  and  the  anomolous 
position  of  Virginia,  an  imperium  in  imperio,  holding  an  em- 
pire abroad,  we  do  not  see  how  the  whole  scheme  can  be  pro- 
nounced anything  less  than  a  stupendous  piece  of  folly. 

The  progress  of  the  British  colony  at  Sierra  Leone  is  well 
calculated  to  illustrate  the  great  difficulties  of  colonizing  ne- 
groes on  the  coasl  of  Africa :  and  we  shall  at  once  present  our 
readers  with  a  brief  history  of  this  colony,  given  by  one  who 
seems  to  be  a  warm  advocate  of  colonization,  and,  consequent- 
ly, disposed  to  present  the  fact  in  the  most  favorable  aspect. 

*  See  Fifteenth  Annual  Report  of  American  Colonization  Society, 
p.  10. 

•j-  The  colony  has  already  had  one  conflict  with  the  natives,  in  which 
it  had  liked  to  be  overwhelmed. 


406  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON   SLAVERY. 

On  the  8th  of  April,  1787,  400  negroes  and  60  Europeans 
sailed  from  England,  supplied  with  provisions  for  six  or  eight 
months,  for  Sierra  Leone.  Now  mark  the  consequences : — 
"  The  result  was  unfortunate  and  even  discouraging.  The 
crowded  condition  of  the  transports,  the  unfavorable  season  at 
which  they  arrived  on  the  coast,  and  the  intemperance  and  im- 
prudence of  the  emigrants,  brought  on  a  mortality  which  re- 
duced their  numbers  nearly  one-half  during  the  first  year. 
Others  deserted  .soon  after  landing,  until  for ty  individuals  only 
remained.  In  1788,  Mr.  Sharp  sent  out  39  more,  and  then  a 
number  of  the  deserters  returned,  and  the  settlement  gradual- 
ly gained  strength.  But  during  the  next  year,  a  controversy 
with  a  neighboring  native  chief,  ended  in  wholly  dispersing  the 
colony ;  and  some  time  elapsed  before  the  remnants  could  be 
again  collected.  A  charter  of  incorporation  was  obtained  in 
1791.  Not  long  afterwards,  about  1,200  new  emigrants  were 
introduced,  being  originally  refugees  from  this  country,  (U. 
States,)  who  had  placed  themselves  under  British  protec- 
tion. Still,  affairs  were  very  badly  managed.  One-tenth  of 
the  Nova  Scotians,  and  half  of  the  Europeans,  died  during 
one  season,  as  much  from  want  .of  provisions  as  any  other 
ca.use.  Two  years  afterwards,  a  store-ship  belonging  to  the 
company,  which  had  been  made  the  receptacle  of  African  pro- 
duce, was  lost  by  fire,  with  a  cargo  valued  at  £15,000.  Then 
INSURRECTIONS  arose  among  the  blacks  !  Worst  of  all,  in 
1794,  a  large  French  squadron,  wholly  without  provisions,  at- 
tacked the  settlement,  and  although  the  colors  were  immediate- 
ly struck,  proceeded  to  an  indiscriminate  pillage.*  .  .  . 
(Some  years)  afterwards,  a  large  number  of  the  worst  part  of 

*  We  would  beg  leave  most  respectfully  to  ask  our  Virginia  abolitionists, 
how  an  insult  of  this  character  offered  to  any  colony  which  we  might  es- 
tablish in  Africa,  would  be  resented?  Would  the  Nation  of  Virginia  de- 
clare war  on  the  aggressor  ?  and  if  she  did,  where  would  be  her  navy, 
her  sailors,  her  soldiers,  and  the  constitutionality  of  the  act? 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  40*7 

the  settlers,  chiefly  the  Nova  Scotians,  rebelled  against  the  Co- 
lonial Government.  The  Governor  called  in  the  assistance  of 
the  neighboring  African  tribes,  and  matters  were  on  the  eve 
of  a  battle,  when  a  transport  arrived  in  the  harbor,  bring- 
ing 550  Maroons  from  Jamaica.  Lots  of  land  were  given  to 
these  men  ;  they  proved  regular  and  industrious,  and  the  in- 
surgents laid  down  their  arms.  Wars  next  ensued  with  the 
natives,  which  were  not  finally  concluded  until  1807.  On  the 
first  January,  1808,  all  the  rights  and  possessions  of  the  com- 
pany were  surrendered  to  the  British  Crown  ;  and  in  this  situa- 
tion they  have  ever  since  remained."  [See  76/A  No.  of  the 
North  American  Revieio,  pp.  120  and  121.]  The  progress 
of  the  colony  since  1808,  has  been  as  little  flattering  as  before 
that  period  ;  and  even  Mr.  Everett,  before  the  Colonization  So- 
ciety in  Washington,  has  been  forced  to  acknowledge  its  fail- 
ure. [See  Mr.  Everett"1  s  Speech,  15th  Annual  Report] 

Thus  this  negro  colony  at  Sierra  Leone  illustrates,  most  fully, 
the  fearful  and  tremendous  difficulties  which  must  ever  attend 
every  infant  colony  formed  on  the  coast  of  Africa.  During 
the  brief  period  of  its  existence,  it  has  been  visited  by  all  the 
plagues  that  colonial  establishments  "  are  heir  to."  It  has 
been  cursed  with  the  intemperance,  imprudence,  and  desertion 
of  the  colonists,  with  want  of  homogeneous  character,  and  con- 
sequent dissentions,  civil  wars  and  insurrections.  It  has  ex- 
perienced famines,  and  suffered  insult  and  pillage.  Its  num- 
bers have  been  thinned  by  the  blighting  climate  of  Africa. 
Its  government  has  been  wretched,  and  it  has  been  almost 
continually  engaged  in  war  with  the  neighboring  African 
tribes.* 

*  Perhaps  it  may  be  said,  that  all  these  things  may  be  avoided  in 
our  colonies,  by  -wise  management  and  proper  caution.  To  this  we 
answer,  that  in  speculating  upon  the  destiny  of  multitudes  or  nations, 
we  must  embrace  within  our  calculation  all  the  elements  as  they  ac- 


408  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

Some  have  supposed  that  the  circumstance  of  the  Africans 
being  removed  a  stage  or  two  above  the  savages  of  North 
America,  will  render  the  colonization  of  Africa  much  easier 
than  that  of  America.  We  draw  directly  the  opposite  con- 
clusion. The  Indians  of  North  America  had  nowhere  taken 
possession  of  the  soil ;  they  were  wanderers  over  the  face  of 
the  country  ;  their  titles  could  be  extinguished  for  slight  con- 
siderations ;  and  it  is  ever  melancholy  to  reflect  that  their 
habits  of  improvidence  and  of  intoxication,  and  even  their  cruel 
practices  in  war,  have  all  been  (such  has  been  for  them  the 
woful  march  of  events)  favorable  to  the  rapid  increase  of  the 
whites,  who  have,  thus  been  enabled  to  exterminate  the  red 
men,  and  take  their  places. 

The  natives  of  Africa  exist  in  the  rude  agricultural  state, 
much  more  numerously  than  the  natives  of  America.  Their 
titles  to  land  will  be  extinguished  with  much  more  difficulty 
and  expense.  The  very  fi ret  contact  with  our  colony  will  car- 
ry to  them  the  whole  art  and  implement  of  war.*  As  our 

tually  exist,  civil,  political,  moral  and  physical,  and  our  deductions  to 
be  true,  must  be  taken  not  from  the  beau  ideal  which  a  vivid  imagina- 
tion may  sketch  out,  but  from  the  average  of  concomitant  circumstances. 
It  would  be  a  poor  apology  which  a  statesman  could  offer,  for  the  fail- 
ure of  a  certain  campaign  which  he  had  planned,  to  say  that  he  had 
calculated  that  every  officer  in  the  army  was  a  Napoleon  or  a  Caesar, 
and  that  every  regiment  was  equal  to  Caesar's  10th  Legion  or  the  Im- 
perial Guard  of  Napoleon.  The  physicians  say  there  is  not  much  dan- 
ger to  be  apprehended  from  Cholera,  when  due  caution  and  prudence 
are  exercised.  Yet,  we  apprehend  it  would  be  a  very  unfair  conclu- 
sion if  we  were  to  assert,  that  when  the  Cholera  breaks  out  in  Charles- 
ton there  will  not  be  one  single  death ;  and  yet  we  have  just  as  much 
right  to  make  this  assertion,  as  to  say  that  our  colony  in  Africa  will  be 
free  from  all  the  accidents,  plagues  and  calamities,  to  which  all  such 
establishments  have  ever  been  subjected. . 

*  Powder  and  fire-arms  formed  material  items  in  the  purchase  of 
Liberia. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  409 

colonists  spread  and  press  upon  them,  border  wars  will  arise ; 
and  in  vain  will  the  attempt  be  made  to  extirpate  the  African 
nations,  as  we  have  the  Indian  tribes  :  every  inhabitant  of  Li- 
beria who  is  taken  prisoner  by  his  enemy,  will  be  consigned  ac- 
cording to  the  universal  practice  of  Africa,  to  the  most  wretch- 
ed slavery,  either  in  Africa  or  the  West  Indies.  And  what 
will  our  colony  do  ?  Must  they  murder,  while  their  enemies 
enslave  ?  Oh,  no,  it  is  too  cruel,  and  will  produce  barbarizing 
and  exterminating  wars  ?  Will  they  spare  the  prisoners  of 
war  ?  No  !  There  does  not  and  never  will  exist  a  people  on 
earth,  who  would  tamely  look  on  and  see  their  wives,  mothers, 
brothel's  and  sisters,  ignominiously  enslaved,  and  not  resent 
the  insult.  What,  then,  will  be  done  ?  Why,  they  will  be 
certain  to  enslave  too ;  and  if  domestic  slavery  should  be  in- 
terdicted in  the  colony,  it  would  be  certain  to  encourage  the 
slave  trade  ;*  and  if  we  could  ever  look  forward  to  the  time 
when  the  slave  trade  should  be  destroyed,  then  the  throwing 
back  of  this  immense  current  upon  Africa  would  inundate  all 
the  countries  of  that  region.  It  would  be  like  the  checking 
of  the  emigration  from  the  northern  hives  upon  the  Roman 
world.  The  northern  nations,  in  consequence  of  this  check, 
soon  experienced  all  the  evils  of  a  redundant  population,  and 
broke  forth  with  their  redundant  numbers  in  another  quarter ; 
both  England  and  France  were  overrun,  and  the  repose  of  all 
Europe  was  again  disturbed.  So,  would  a  sudden  check  to 
the  African  slave  trade,  cause  the  redundant  population  of  Af- 
rica to  break  in,  like  the  Normans  and  the  Danes,  on  the 
abodes  of  civilization  situated  in  their  neighborhood.  Let, 
then,  the  real  philanthropist  ponder  over  these  things,  and 
tremble  for  the  fate  of  colonies  which  may  be  imprudently 

*  "We  fear  our  colony  at  Liberia  is  not  entirely  free  from  this  stain 
even  now ;  it  is  well  known  that  the  British  colony  at  Sierra  Leone  has 
frequently  aided  the  slave  trade. 
35 


410  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERT. 

planted  on  the  African  soil.  The  history  of  the  world  has  too 
conclusively  shown,  that  two  races,  differing  in  manners,  cus- 
toms, language,  and  civilization,  can  never  harmonize  upon  a 
footing  of  equality.  One  must  rule  the  other,  or  extermina- 
ting wars  must  be  waged.  In  the  case  of  the  savages  of  North 
America,  we  have  been  successful  in  exterminating  them ;  but 
in  the  case  of  African  nations,  we  do  think,  from  a  view  of 
the  whole  subject,  that  our  colonists  will  most  probably  be 
the  victims  ;  but  the  alternative  is  almost  equally  shocking, 
should  this  not  be  the  case.  They  must  then  be  the  extermk- 
nators  or  enslavers  of  all  the  nations  of  Africa  with  which 
they  come  in  contact.  The  whole  history  of  colonization,  in- 
deed, presents  one  of  the  most  gloomy  and  horrific  pictures  to 
the  imagination  of  the  genuine  philanthropist,  which  can  pos- 
sibly be 'conceived.  The  many  Indians  who  have  been  mur- 
dered, or  driven  in  despair  from  the  haunts  and  hunting 
grounds  of  their  fathers — the  heathen  driven  from  his  herit- 
age, or  hurried  into  the  presence  of  his  God  in  the  full  blossom 
of  all  his  heathenish  sins — the  cruel  slaughter  of  Ashantees — 
the  murder  of  Burmese — all,  all  but  too  eloquently  tell  the 
misery  and  despair  portended  by  the  advance  of  civilization  to 
the  savage  and  the  pagan,  whether  in  America,  Africa  or  Asia. 
In  the  very  few  cases  where  the  work  of  desolation  ceased, 
and  a  commingling  of  races  ensued,  it  has  been  found  that 
the  civilized  man  has  sunk  down  to  the  level  of  barbarism,  and 
there  has  ended  the  mighty  work  of  civilization  !  Such  are 
the  melancholy  pictures  which  sober  reason  is  constrained  to 
draw  of  the  future  destinies  of  our  colony  in  Africa.  And  what, 
then,  will  become  of  that  grand  and  glorious  idea  of  carrying 
religion,  intelligence,  industry,  and  the  arts,  to  the  already 
wronged  and  injured  African  ?  It  is  destined  to  vanish,  and 
prove  worse  than  mere  delusion.  The  rainbow  of  promise 
will  be  swept  away,  and  we  shall  awake  at  last  to  all  the  sad 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  411 

realities  of  savage  warfare  and  increasing  barbarism.  We 
have  thus  stated  some  of  the  principal  difficulties  and  dangers 
accompanying  a  scheme  of  colonization,  upon  a  scale  as  large 
as  proposed  in  the  Virginia  Legislature.  We  have  said  enough 
to  show,  that  if  we  ever  send  off  6,000  per  annum,  we  must 
incur  an  expense  far  beyond  the  purchase  money. 

The  expense  of  deportation  to  Africa  we  have  estimated  at 
thirty  dollars ;  but  when  there  is  taken  into  the  calculation 
the  further  expense  of  collecting  in  Virginia,*  of  feeding,  pro- 

*  Even  supposing  the  number  of  blacks  to  be  annually  deported 
should  ever  be  fixed  by  the  State,  the  difficulty  of  settling  upon  a  proper 
plan  of  purchase  and  collection  will  be  infinitely  greater  than  any  man 
would  be  willing  to  admit,  who  has  not  seriously  reflected  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  the  apple  of  discord  will  be  thrown  into  the  Virginia  Legisla- 
ture the  moment  it  shall  ever  come  to  discuss  the  details.  Suppose,  for 
example,  six  thousand  are  to  be  sent  off"  annually  ;  will  you  send  negro 
buyers  through  the  country  to  buy  up  slaves  wherever  they  can  be 
bought,  until  six  thousand  are  purchased  !  If  you  do,  you  will  inevita- 
bly gather  together  the  very  dregs  of  creation,  the  most  viaious,  the 
most  worthless,  and  the  most  idle,  for  these  alone  will  be  sold  ! — a  fright- 
ful population,  whose  multitudes,  when  gathered  together  and  poured 
upon  the  infant  settlements  in  Africa,  will  be  far  more  destructive  than 
the  lava  flood  from  the  volcano.  Again,  some  portions  of  the  State 
might  sell  cheaper  than  others,  and  an  undue  proportion-  of  slaves  would 
be  purchased  from  these  quarters,  and  cause  the  system  to  operate  un- 
equally. Will  you  divide  the  State  into  sections,  and  purchase  from 
each  according  to  black  population?  Then,  what  miserable  sectional 
controversies  should  we  have  in  the  State  ?  What  dreadful  grumbling 
in  the  west?  Moreover,  the  same  relative  numbers  abstracted  from  a 
very  dense  and  very  sparse  population,  will  produce  a  very  different 
effect  on  the  labor  market.  Thus,  we  will  suppose  along  the  margin  of 
the  James  River,  from  Richmond  to  Norfolk,  the  blacks  are  twenty  for 
one  white,  and  that  in  some  country  beyond  the  Blue  Ridge,  this  propor- 
tion is  reversed.  Suppose,  further,  that  a  twentieth  of  the  blacks  are  to 
be  bought  up  and  sent  off",  this  demand  will  have  but  a  slight  effect  on 
the  labor  market  in  the  country  beyond  the  Ridge,  because  it  calls  for 
only  one  in  four  hundred  of  the  population  ;  whereas  the  effect  should 


412  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

tecting,  &c.,  in  Africa,  the  amount  swells  beyond  all  calcula- 
tion. Mr.  Tazewell,  in  his  able  report  on  the  colonization  of 
free  people  on  the  African  coast,  represents  this  expense  as 
certainly  amounting  to  one  hundred  dollars;  and,  judging 
from  actual  experience,  was  disposed  to  think  two  hundred 
dollars  would  fall  below  the  fair  estimate.  If  the  Virginia 
scheme  shall  ever  be  adopted,  we  have  no  doubt  that  both 
these  estimates  will  fall  below  the  real  expense.  The  annual  cost 
of  removing  six  thousand,  instead  of  being  $1,380,000,  will 
swell  beyond  $2,400,000, — an  expense  sufficient  to  destroy  the 
entire  value  of  the  whole  property  of  Virginia.  Voltaire,  in 
his  Philosophical  Dictionary,  has  said,  that  such  is  the  inhe- 
rent and  preservative  vigor  of  nations,  that  governments  can- 
not possibly  ruin  them  ;  that  almost  all  governments  which 
have  been  established  in  the  world  had  made  the  attempt, 
but  had  failed.  If  the  sage  of  France  had  lived  in  our  days, 
he  would  have  had  a  receipt  furnished  by  some  of  our  philan- 
thropists, by  which  this  work  might  have  been  accomplished  ! 
We  read  in  Holy  Writ  of  one  great  emigration  from  the  land 
of  Egypt,  and  the  concomitant  circumstances  should  bid  us 
well  beware  of  an  imitation,  unless  assisted  by  the  constant 
presence  of  Jehovah.  Ten  plagues  were  sent  upon  the  land 
of  Egypt  before  Pharaoh  would  consent  to  part  with  the  Is- 
raelites, the  productive  laborers  of  his  kingdom.  But  a  short 
time  convinced  him  of  the  heavy  loss  which  he  sustained  by 

be  great  along  the  James  River,  as  it  would  take  away  one  in  twenty- 
one  of  the  population.  The  slaves,  in  every  section,  would  command 
a  different  price,  Bnd  we  would  be  obliged, to  establish  our  Octroi  and 
Douanier,  and  tax  or  prevent  the  migration  of  negroes  from  one  section 
to  another.  But  we  will  not  pursue  further  the  examination  of  mere 
details,  which  do  not  fall  within  our  original  design.  It  will  be  discov- 
ered from  even  a  slight  analysis,  that  every  single  branch  of  this  gigantic 
schem&of  folly,  like  the  teeth  of  the  fabled  dragon,  will  bring  you  forth 
an  armed  man  to  anest  your  progress. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  413 

their  removal,  and  he  gave  pursuit ;  but  God  was  present 
with  the  Israelites.  He  parted  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea 
for  their  passage,  and  closed  them  over  the  Egyptians.  He 
led  on  his  chosen  people  through  the  wilderness,  testifying 
his  presence  in  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night,  and  a  cloud  of  smoke 
by  d^y.  He  supplied  them  with  manna  in  their  long  jour- 
ney, sending  a  sufficiency  on  the  sixth  for  that  and  the  sev- 
enth day.  When  they  were  thirsty,  the  rocks  poured  forth 
waters,  and  when  they  finally  arrived  in  the  land  of  promise, 
after  the  loss  of  a  generation,  the  mysterious  will  of  heaven 
had  doomed  the  tribes  of  Canaan  to  destruction  ;  fear  and 
apprehension  confounded  all  their  counsels ;  their  battlements 
sunk  down  at  the  trumpet's  sound ;  the  native  hosts,  under 
heaven's  command,  were  all  slaughtered ;  and  the  children  of 
Israel  took  possession  of  the  habitations  and  property  of  the 
slaughtered  inhabitants.  The  whole  history  of  this  emigra- 
tion beautifully  illustrates  the  great  difficulties  and  hardships 
of  removal  to  foreign  lands  of  multitudes  of  people.  And  as 
a  citizen  of  Virginia,  we  can  never  consent  to  so  grand  a 
scheme  of  colonization  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  until  it  is  sanc- 
tioned by  a  decree  of  heaven,  made  known  by  signs,  far  more 
intelligible  than  an  eclipse  and  greenness  of  the  sun — till 
manna  shall  be  rained  down  for  the  subsistence  of  our  black 
emigrants — till  seas  shall  be  parted,  and  waters  flow  from 
rocks  for  their  accommodation — till  we  shall  have  a  leader 
like  Moses,  who,  in  the  full  confidence  of  all  his  piety  and  reli- 
gion, can,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  appalling  difficulties  and  ca- 
lamities by  which  he  may  be  surrounded,  speak  forth  to  his 
murmuring  people,  in  the  language  of  comfort,  "  Fear  ye  not, 
stand  still,  and  see  the  salvation  of  the  Lord,  which  he  will 
shew  to  you  to-day." 

But,  say  some,  if  Virginia  cannot  accomplish  this  work,  let 
us  call  upon  the  General  Government  for  aid — let  Hercules 
35* 


414  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

be  requested  to  put  his  shoulders  to  the  wheels,  and  roll  us 
through  the  formidable  quagmire  of  our  difficulties.  Delu- 
sive prospect !  Corrupting  scheme  !  We  will  throw  all  con- 
stitutional difficulties  out  of  view,  and  ask  if  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment can  be  requested  to  undertake  the  expense  for  Vir- 
ginia, without  encountering  it  for  the  whole  slaveholding 
population  ?  And  then,  whence  can  be  drawn  the  funds  to 
purchase  more  than  2,000,000  of  slaves,  worth  at  the  lowest 
calculation  $400,000,000  ;  or  if  the  increase  alone  be  sent  off, 
can  Congress  undertake  annually  to  purchase  at  least  60,000 
slaves,  at  an  expense  of  $12,000,000,  and  deport  and  colonize 
them  at  an  expense  of  twelve  or  fifteen  millions  more  ?*  But 
the  fabled  hydra  would  be  more  than  realized  in  this  project. 
"We  have  no  doubt  that  if  the  United  States  in  good  faith 
should  enter  into  the  slave  markets  of  the  country,  determin- 
ed to  purchase  up  the  whole  annual  increase  of  our  slaves,  so 
unwise  a  project,  by  its  artificial  demand,  would  immediately 
produce  a  rise  in  this  property,  throughout  the  whole  south- 
ern country,  of  at  least  33£  per  cent.  It  would  stimulate  and 
invigorate  the  spring  of  black  population,  which,  by  its  tre- 
mendous action,  would  set  at  nought  the  puny  efforts  of  man, 
and,  like  the  Grecian  matron,  unweave  in  the  night  what  had 
been  woven  in  the  day.  We  might  well  calculate  upon  an 
annual  increase  of  at  least  four  and  a  half  per  cent,  upon  our 
two  millions  of  slaves,  if  ever  the  United  States  should  create 
the  artificial  demand  which  we  have  just  spoken  of ;  and  then, 
instead  of  an  increase  of  60,000,  there  will  be  90,000,  bearing  the 
average  price  of  $300  each,making  the  enormous  annual  expense 
of  purchase  alone  $27,000,000  !  and  difficulties,  too,  on  the 
side  of  the  colony,  would  more  than  enlarge  with  the  increase 

*  We  must  recollect,  that  the  expense  of  colonizing  increases  much 
more  rapidly  than  ia  proportion  to  the  simple  increase  of  the  number  of 
emigrants. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  415 

of  the  evil  at  Lome.  Our  Colonization  Society  has  been  more 
than  fifteen  years  at  work  ;  it  has  purchased,  according  to  its 
funds,  a  district  of  country  as  congenial  to  the  constitution  of 
the  black  as  any  in  Africa ;  it  has,  as  we  have  seen,  frequent- 
ly over-supplied  the  colony  with  emigrants  ;  and  mark  the  re- 
sult, for  it  is  worthy  of  all  observation,  there  now  are  not 
more  than  2000  or  2500  inhabitants  an  Liberia!  And  these 
are  alarmed  lest  the  Southampton  insurrection  may  cause  such 
an  emigration  as  to  inundate  the  colony.  When,  then,  in  the 
lapse  of  time,  can  we  ever  expect  to  build  up  a  colony  which 
can  receive  sixty  or  ninety  thousand  slaves  per  annum  ?  And  if 
this  should  ever  arrive,  what  guarantee  could  be  furnished  us 
that  their  ports  would  always  be  open  to  our  emigrants  ? 
Would  law  or  compact  answer  ?  Oh,  no !  Some  legislator, 
in  the  plenitude  of  his  wisdom,  might  arise,  who  could  easily 
and  truly  persuade  his  countrymen  that  these  annual  impor- 
tations of  blacks  were  nuisances,  and  the  laws  of  God,  what- 
ever might  be  those  of  men,  would  justify  their  abatement. 
And  the  drama  would  be  wound  up  in  this  land  of  promise 
and  expectation,  by  turning  the  cannon's  mouth  against  the 
liberated  emigrant  and  deluded  philanthropist.  The  scheme 
of  colonizing  our  blacks  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  or  anywhere 
else,  by  the  United  States,  is  thus  seen  to  be  more  stupen- 
dously absurd  than  even  the  Virginia  project.  King  Canute, 
the  Dane,  seated  on  the  sea  shore,  and  ordering  the  rising 
flood  to  recede  from  his  royal  feet,  was  not  guilty  of  more 
vanity  and  presumption  than  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  would  manifest,  in  the  vain  effort  of  removing  and 
colonizing  the  annual  increase  of  our  blacks.  So  far  from 
being  able  to  remove  the  whole  annual  increase  every  year, 
we  shall  not  be  enabled  to  send  off  a  number  sufficiently 
great  to  check  even  the  geometrical  rate  of  increase.  Our 
black  population  is  now  producing  60,000  per  annum,  and 


416  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

next  year  we  must  add  to  this  sum  1,800,  which  the  incre- 
ment alone  is  capable  of  producing,  and  the  year  after,  the 
increment  upon  the  increment,  &c.  Now,  let  us  throw  out  of 
view,  for  a  moment,  the  idea  of  grappling  with  the  whole 
annual  increase,  and  see  whether  by  colonization  we  can  ex- 
pect to  turn  this  geometrical  increase  into  an  arithmetical  one. 
We  will  then  take  the  annual  increase,  60,000,  as  our  capital, 
and  it  will  be  necessary  to  send  off  the  increase  upon  this 
1800,  to  prevent  the  geometrical  increase  of  the  whole  black 
population.  Let  us,  then,  for  a  moment,  inquire  whether  the 
abolitionists  can  expect  to  realize  this  petty  advantage. 

Mr.  Bacon  admits,  that  1,000  emigrants  now  thrown  on 
Liberia,  would  ruin  it.  We  believe  that  every  reflecting  so- 
ber member  of  the  Colonization  Society  will  acknowledge 
that  500  annually,  are  fully  as  many  as  the  colony  £an  now 
receive.  We  will  assume  this  number,  though  no  doubt 
greatly  beyond  the  truth ;  and  we  will  admit  further,  (what 
we  could  easily  demonstrate  to  be  much  too  liberal  a  conces- 
sion,) that  the  capacity  of  the  colony  for  the  reception  of  emi- 
grants may  be  made  to  enlarge  in  a  geometrical  ratio,  equal 
to  that  of  the  rate  of  increase  of  the  blacks  in  the  United 
States.  Now,  with  these  very  liberal  concessions  on  our  part, 
let  us  examine  into  the  effect  of  the  colonization  scheme.  At 
the  end  of  the  first  year,  we  shall  have  for  the  amount  of  the 
60,000,  increasing  at  the  rate  of  three  and  a  half  per  cent., 
61,800  ;  and  subtracting  500,  we  shall  begin  the  second  year 
with  the  number  of  61,300,  which,  increasing  at  the  rate  of 
three  and  a  half  per  centum,  gives  63,139  for  the  amount  at 
the  end  of  the  second  year.  Proceeding  thus,  we  obtain,  at 
the  end  of  twenty-five  years,  for  the  amount  of  the  60,000, 
101,208.  The  number  taken  away,  that  is  the  sum  of 
500  +  500  X  1,003  +  500  X  1,003,  <kc.,  will  be  18,197.  It 
is  thus  seen,  that  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  colonization 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  417 

scheme,  the  bare  annual  increase  of  our  slaves  will  produce 
41,208  more  than  can  be  sent  off;  which  number,  of  course, 
must  be  added  to  the  capital  of  60,000  ;  and  long,  very  long, 
before  the  colony  in  Africa,  upon  our  system  of  calculation, 
even  could  receive  the  increase  upon  this  accumulating  capi- 
tal, its  capacity  as  a  recipient  would  be  checked  by  the  limi- 
tation of  territory,  and  the  rapid  filling  up  of  the  population, 
both  by  emigration  and  natural  increase.  And  thus,  by  a 
simple  arithmetical  calculation,  we  may  be  convinced  that  the 
effort  to  check  even  the  geometrical  rate  of  increase,  by  send- 
ing off  the  increment  upon  the  annual  increase  of  our  slaves, 
is  greatly  more  than  we  can  accomplish,  and  must  inevitably 
terminate  in  disappointment — more  than  realizing  the  fable 
of  the  frog  and  the  ox  ;  for  in  this  case  we  should  have  the 
frog  swelling,  not  for  the  purpose  of  rivalling  the  ox  in  size, 
but  to  swallow  him  down,  horns  and  all ! 

Seeing,  then,  that  the  effort  to  send  away  the  increase,  on 
even  the  present  increase  of  our  slaves,  must  be  vain  and 
fruitless,  how  stupendously  absurd  must  be  the  project,  pro- 
posing to  send  off  the  whole  increase,  so  as  to  keep  down  the 
negro  population  at  its  present  amount !  There  are  some 
things  which  man,  arrayed  in  all  his  "  brief  authority,"  can- 
not accomplish,  and  this  is  one  of  them.  Colonization  schem- 
ers, big  and  busy  in  the  management  of  all  their  little  ma- 
chinery, and  gravely  proposing  it  as  an  engine  by  which  our 
black  population  may  be  sent  to  the  now  uncongenial  home 
of  their  ancestors,  across  an  ocean  of  thousands  of  miles  in 
width,  but  too  strongly  remind  us  of  the  vain  man  who,  in 
all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  power,  ordered  his  servile 
attendants  to  stop  the  rise  of  ocean's  tide,  by  carrying  off  its 
accumulating  waters.  Emigration  has  rarely  checked  the 
increase  of  population,  by  directly  lessening  its  number ;  it 
can  only  do  it  by  the  abstraction  of  capital,  and  by  paralyzing 


418  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

the  spring  of  population,  and  then  it  blights  and  withers  the 
prosperity  of  the  land.  The  population  of  Europe  has  not 
been  thinned  by  emigration  to  the  new  world — the  province 
of  Andalusia,  in  Spain,  which  sent  out  the  greatest  number  of 
emigrants  to  the  Islands,  and  to  Mex:co  and  Peru,  has  been 
precisely  the  district  in  Spain  which  has  increased  its  popu- 
lation most  rapidly.  Ireland  now  sends  forth  a  greater  num- 
ber of  emigrants  than  any  other  country  in  the  world,  and  yet 
the  population  of  Ireland  is  now  increasing  faster  than  any 
other  population  of  Europe  ! 

We  hope  we  have  now  said  enough  of  these  colonization 
schemes  to  show  that  we  can  never  expect  to  send  off  our 
black  population,  by  their  means — and  we  cannot  conclude 
without  addressing  a  word  of  caution  to  the  generous  sons  of 
the  Old  Dominion.  It  behooves  them  well  to  beware  with 
what  intent  they  look  to  the  Federal  Government  for  aid  in 
the  accomplishment  of  these  delusive — these  impracticable 
projects.  The  guileful  tempter  of  our  original  parents  se- 
duced them  with  the  offer  of  an  apple,  which  proved  their 
heaviest  curse,  drove  them  from  the  garden  of  Eden,  and  de- 
stroyed for  ever  their  state  of  innocence  and  purity.  Let 
Virginia  beware,  then,  that  she  be  not  tempted  by  the  apple, 
to  descend  from  that  lofty  eminence  which  she  has  hitherto 
occupied  in  our  confederacy,  and  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of 
misconceived  interests  those  pure  political  principles  by  which 
she  has  hitherto  been  so  proudly  characterized.  This  whole 
question  of  emancipation  and  deportation  is  but  too  well  cal- 
culated to  furnish  the  political  lever, .  by  which  Virginia  is  to 
be  prised  out  of  her  natural  and  honorable  position  in  the 
Union,  and  made  to  sacrifice  her  noble  political  creed.  We 
have  witnessed  with  feelings  of  no  common  kind,  the  almost 
suppliant  look  cast  towards  the  General  Government,  by  some 
of  the  orators  in  the  Virginia  debate.  It  has  pained  us  to 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  419 

read  speeches,  and  pamphlets,  and  newspaper  essays,  suggest- 
ing changes  in  the  constitution,  or  at  once  boldly  imploring, 
without  such  changes,  the  action  of  the  Federal  Government. 
Unless  the  sturdy  patriots  of  Virginia  stand  forth,  we  fear,  in- 
deed, that  her  noble  principles  will  be  swept  away  by  the  tide 
of  corruption.  The  agitation  of  the  slave  question  in  the  last 
Virginia  Legislature,  has  already  begun  the  work,  and  the 
consent  of  Virginia  to  receive  Federal  aid  in  the  scheme  of 
emancipation  and  deportation  would  complete  it.  As  long  as 
a  State  relies  upon  its  own  resources,  and  looks  to  no  foreign 
quarter  for  aid  or  support,  so  long  does  she  place  herself 
without  the  sphere  of  temptation,  and  preserve  her  political 
virtue.  This  is  one  principal  reason  why  Virginia  has  pro- 
duced so  many  disinterested  patriots.  We  will  go  further 
still ;  the  generous,  disinterested  and  noble  character  of  south- 
ern politicians  generally,  is,  in  a  great  measure,  attributable 
to  this  very  cause.  The  South  has  hitherto  had  nothing  to 
ask  of  the  Federal  Government — she  has  been  no  dependant, 
no  expectant  at  the  door  of  the  Federal  Treasury — she  has 
never,  therefore,  betrayed  the  interest  of  the  Union,  for  some 
paltry  benefit  to  herself.  But  let  her  once  consent  to  suppli- 
cate the  aid  of  the  General  Government  on  this  slave  ques- 
tion— and  that  moment  will  she  sacrifice  her  high  political 
principles,  and  become  a  dependant  on  that  government. 
When  Virginia  shall  consent  to  receive  this  boon,  her  hands 
will  be  tied  for  ever,  the  emancipating  interest  will  be  added 
to  the  internal  improvement  and  tariff  interests,  and  Virginia 
can  no  more  array  herself  against  the  torrent  of  Federal  op- 
pression. Hitched  to  the  car  of  the  Federal  Government,  she 
will  be  so  ignominiously  dragged  forward,  a  conscience-strick- 
en partner  in  the  unholy  alliance  for  oppression  ;  and  in  that 
day,  the  genuine  patriot  may  well  cast  a  longing,  lingering 
look  back  to  the  days  of  purer  principles,  and  "  sigh  for  the 


420  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

loss  of  Eden."  And  in  this  melancholy,  saddening  retrospect, 
he  will  not  have  the  poor  consolation  left,  of  seeing  his  noble 
State  reap  the  paltry  reward,  which  had  so  fatally  tempted 
her  to  an  abandonment  of  her  principles.  Can  any  reflecting 
man,  for  a  moment,  believe  that  the  North  and  West,  form- 
ing the  majority  of  our  Confederacy,  would  ever  seriously  con- 
sent to  that  enormous  expenditure  which  would  be.  necessary 
to  carry  into  effect  this  gigantic  colonization  scheme — a 
scheme  whose  direct  operation  would  be,  to  take  away  that 
very  lalor,  which  now  bears  the  burthen  of  federal  exactions 
— a  scheme  whose  operation  would  be  to  dry  up  the  sources 
of  that  very  revenue,  upon  which  its  success  entirely  depends ! 
Vain  and  delusive  hope !  Not  one  negro  slave  will  ever  be 
sent  away  from  this  country  by  federal  funds — and  heaven 
forbid  that  they  should  ;  and  yet  we  fear  the  longing,  linger- 
ing hope,  will  corrupt  the  pure  principles  of  many  a  deluded 
patriot. 

We  have  thus  examined  fully  this  scheme  of  emancipation 
and  deportation,  and  trust  we  have  satisfactorily  shown,  that 
the  whole  plan  is  utterly  impracticable,  requiring  an  expense 
and  sacrifice  of  property  far  beyond  the  entire  resources  of  the 
State  and  Federal  Governments.  We  shall  now  proceed  to 
inquire,  whether  we  can  emancipate  our  slaves  with  permis- 
sion that  they  remain  among  us. 

Emancipation  without  Deportation. — We  candidly  confess, 
that  we  look  upon  this  last  mentioned  scheme  as  much  more 
practicable,  and  likely  to  be  forced  upon  us,  than  the  former. 
We  consider  it,  at  the  same  time,  so  fraught  with  danger  and 
mischief  both  to  the  whites  and  blacks — so  utterly  subversive 
of  the  welfare  of  the  slaveholding  country,  in  both  an  economi- 
cal and  moral  point  of  view,  that  we  cannot,  upon  any  princi- 
ple of  right  or  expediency,  give  it  our  sanction.  Almost  all 
the  speakers  in  the  Virginia  Legislature  seemed  to  think  there 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  421 

ought  to  be  no  emancipation  without  deportation.     Mr.  Clay, 
too,  in  his  celebrated  colonization  speech  of  1830,  says,  "if  the 
question  were  submitted  whether  there  should  be  immediate 
or  gradual  emancipation  of  all  the  slaves  in  the  United  States, 
without  their  removal  or  colonization,  painful  as  it  is  to  ex- 
press the  opinion,  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  would  be  unwise  to 
emancipate  them.     I  believe  that  the  aggregate  of  evils  which 
would  be  engendered*  in  society,  upon  the  supposition  of  gene- 
ral emancipation,  and  of  the  liberated  slaves  remaining  princi- 
pally among  us,  would  be  greater  than  all  the  evils  of  slave- 
ry, great  as  they  unquestionably  are."     Even  the  northern 
philanthropists  themselves  admit,  generally,  that  there  should 
be  no  emancipation  without  removal.     Perhaps,  then,  under 
these  circumstances,  we  might  have  been  justified  in  closing 
our  review  with  a  consideration  of  the  colonization  scheme  ; 
but  as  we  are  anxious  to  survey  this  subjeqt  fully  in  all  its 
aspects,  and  to  demonstrate  upon  every  ground  the  complete 
justification  of  the  whole  southern  country  in  a  further  con- 
tinuance of  that  system  of  slavery  which  has  been  originated 
by  no  fault  of  theirs,  and  continued  and  increased  contrary  to 
their  most  earnest  desires  and  petitions,  we  have  determined 
briefly  to  examine  this  scheme  likewise.     As  we  believe  the 
scheme  of  deportation  utterly  impracticable,  we  have  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  in  the  present  great  question,  the  real  and 
decisive  line  of  conduct  is  either  abolition  without  removal,  or 
a  steady  perseverance  in  the  system  now  established.     "  Pal- 
try and  timid  minds,"  says  the  present  Lord  Chancellor  of 
England  on  this  very  subject,  "  shudder  at  the  thought  of 
mere  activity,  as  cowardly  troops  tremble  at  the  idea  of  calm- 
ly waiting  for  the  enemy's  approach.     Both  the  one  and  the 
other  hasten  their  fate  by  relentless  and"  foolish  movements." 

The  ground  upon  which  we  shall  rest  our  argument  on  this 
subject  is,  that  the  slaves,  in  both  an  economical  and  moral 
36 

V 


422  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  8LAVERT. 

point  of  view,  are  entirely  unfit  for  a  state  of  freedom  among 
the  whites  ;  and  we  shall  produce  such  proofs  and  illustra- 
tions of  our  position,  as  seem  to  us  perfectly  conclusive.  That 
condition  of  our  species  from  which  the  most  important  con- 
sequences flow,  says  Mr.  Mill,  the  Utilitarian,  is  the  necessity 
of  labor  for  the  supply  of  the  fund  of  our  necessaries  and  con- 
veniences. It  is  this  which  influences,  perhaps  more  than  any 
other,  even  our  moral  and  religious  character,  and  determines 
more  than  everything  else  besides,  the  social  and  political 
state  of  man.  It  must  enter  into  the  calculations  of  not  only 
the  political  economist,  but  even  of  the  metaphysician,  the 
moralist,  the  theologian,  and  politician. 

We  shall,  therefore,  proceed  at  once  to  inquire  what  effect 
would  be  produced  upon  the  slaves  of  the  South  in  an  eco- 
nomical point  of  view,  by  emancipation  with  permission  to 
remain — whether  the  voluntary  labor  of  the  freed-man  would 
be  as  great  as  the  involuntary  labor  of  the  slave  ?  Fortunate- 
ly for  us,  this  question  has  been  so  frequently  and  fairly  sub- 
jected to  the  test  of  experience,  that  we  are  no  longer  left  to 
vain  and  fruitless  conjecture.  Much  was  said  in  the  Legisla- 
ture of  Virginia  about  superiority  of  free  labor  over  slave,  and 
perhaps,  under  certain  circumstances,  this  might  be  true  ;  but, 
in  the  present  instance,  the  question  is  between  the  relative 
amounts  of  labor  which  may  be  obtained  from  slaves  before 
and  after  their  emancipation.  Let  us,  then,  first  commence 
with  our  country,  where,  it  is  well  known  to  everybody,  that 
slave  labor  is  vastly  more  efficient  and  productive  than  the 
labor  of  free  blacks. 

Taken  as  a  whole  class,  the  latter  must  be  considered  the 
most  worthless  and  indolent  of  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States.  It  is  well  known  that  throughout  the  whole  extent 
of  our  Union,  they  are  looked  upon  as  the  very  drones  and 
pests  of  society.  Nor  does  this  character  arise  from  the  disa- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  423 

bilities  and  disfranchisement  by  which  the  law  attempts  to 
guard  against  them.  In  the  non-slaveholding  States,  where 
they  have  been  more  elevated  by  law,  this  kind  of  population 
is  ia  a  worse  condition,  and  much  more  troublesome  to  socie- 
ty, than  in  the  slaveholding,  and  especially  in  the  planting 
States.  Ohio,  some  years  ago,  formed  a  sort  of  land  of  pro- 
mise for  this  deluded  class,  to  which  many  have  repaired  from 
the  slaveholding  States, — and  what  has  been  the  consequence  ? 
They  have  been  most  harshly  expelled  from  that  State,  and 
forced  to  take  refuge  in  a  foreign  land.  Look  through  the 
Northern  States,  and  mark  the  class  upon  whom  the  eye  of 
the  police  is  most  steadily  and  constantly  kept— see  with  what 
vigilance  and  care  they  are  hunted  down  from  place  to  place — 
and  you  cannot  fail  to  see  that  idleness  and  improvidence  are 
at  the  root  of  all  their  misfortunes.  Not  only  does  the  expe- 
rience of  our  own  country  illustrate  this  great  fact,  but  others 
furnish  abundant  testimony. 

u  The  free  negroes,"  says  Brougham,  "  in  the  West  Indies 
are,  with  a  very  few  exceptions,  chiefly  in  the  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  settlements,  equally  averse  to  all  sorts  of  labor 
which  do  not  contribute  to  the  supply  of  their  immediate  and 
most  urgent  wants.  Improvident  and  careless  of  the  future, 
they  are  not  actuated  by  that  principle  which  inclines  more 
civilized  men  to  equalize  their  exertions  at  all  times,  and  to 
work  after  the  necessaries  of  the  day  have  been  procured,  in 
order  to  make  up  for  the  possible  deficiencies  of  the  morrow  ; 
nor  has  their  intercourse  with  the  whites  taught  them  to  con- 
sider any  gratification  as  worth  obtaining,  which  cannot  be 
produced  by  slight  exertion  of  desultory  and  capricious  in- 
dustry."* 

In  the  report  of  the  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council  in 
Great  Britain,  in  1788,  the  most  ample  proof  of  this  assertion 
*  Brougham's  Colonial  Policy,  Book  IV.,  Sec.  1. 


424  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

is  brought  forward.  In  Jamaica  and  Barbadoes,  it  was  stated, 
that  free  negroes  were  never  known  to  work  for  hire,  and  they 
have  all  the  vices  of  the  slave.  Mr.  Braithwait,  the  agent  for 
Barbadoes,  affirmed,  that  if  the  slaves  in  that  island  were  of- 
fered their  freedom  on  condition  of  working  for  themselves, 
not  one-tenth  of  them  would  accept  it.  In  all  the  other  colo- 
nies the  statements  agree  most  accurately  with  those  collected 
by  the  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council.  "M.  Malouet,  who 
bore  a  special  commission  from  the  present  government  to 
examine  the  character  and  habits  of  the  Maroons  in  Dutch 
Guiana,  and  to  determine  whether  or  not  they  were  adapted 
to  become  hired  laborers,  informs  us  that  they  will  only  work 
one  day  in  the  week,  which  they  find  abundantly  sufficient,  in 
the  fertile  soil  and  genial  climate  of  the  new  world,  to  supply 
all  the  wants  that  they  have  yet  learnt  to  feel.  The  rest  of 
their  time  is  spent  in  absolute  indolence  and  sloth.  '  Le 
reposj  says  he,  '  et  Foisivete  sont  devenus  dans  leur  etat  social 
leur  unique  passion  ?  He  gives  the  very  same  description  of 
the  free  negroes  in  the  French  colonies,  although  many  of 
them  possessed  lands  and  slaves.  The  spectacle,  he  tells  us, 
was  never  yet  exhibited  of  a  free  negro  supporting  his  family 
by  the  culture  of  his  little  property.  All  other  authors  agree 
in  giving  the  same  description  of  free  negroes  in  the  British, 
French  and  Dutch  colonies,  by  whatever  denomination  they 
may  be  distinguished,  whether  Maroons,  Caraibes,  free  blacks, 
or  fugitive  slaves.  The  Abbe  Raynald,  with  all  his  ridiculous 
fondness  for  savages,  cannot,  in  the  present  instance,  so  far 
twist  the  facts  according  to  his  fancies  and  feelings,  as  to  give 
a  favorable  portrait  of  this  degraded  race."* 

From  these  facts,  it  would  require  no  great  sagacity  to  come 
to  the  conclusion,  that  slave  cannot  be  converted  into  free 
labor  without  imminent  danger  to  the  prosperity  and  wealth 
*  Brougham's  Colonial  Policy. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  OK  SLAVERY.  425 

of  the  country  where  the  change  takes  place — and  in  this  par- 
ticular it  matters  not  what  may  be  the  color  of  the  slave.  In 
the  commencement  of  the  reign  of  Charles  V.,  the  representa- 
tions of  Las  Casas  determined  Cardinal  Ximenes,  the  prime 
minister  of  Charles,  to  make  an  experiment  of  the  conversion 
of  slave  labor  into  free,  and  for  this  purpose  pious  commis- 
sioners were  sent  out,  attended  by  Las  Casas  himself,  for  the 
purpose  of  liberating  the  Indian  slaves  in  the  new  world.  Now 
mark  the  result.  These  commissioners,  chosen  from  the  clois- 
ter, and  big  with  real  philanthropy,  repaired  to  the  Western 
world  intent  upon  the  great  work  of  emancipation.  "  Their 
ears,"  says  Robertson,  "  were  open  to  information  from  every 
quarter — they  compared  the  different  accounts  which  they  re- 
ceived— and  after  a  mature  consideration  of  the  whole,  they 
were  fully  satisfied  that  the  state  of  the  colony  rendered  it  im- 
possible to  adopt  the  plan  proposed  by  Las  Casas,  and  recom- 
mended by  the  Cardinal.  They  plainly  perceived  that  no  al- 
lurement was  so  powerful  as  to  surmount  the  natural  aversion 
of  the  Indians  to  any  laborious  effort,  and  that  nothing  but 
the  authority  of  a  master  could  compel  them  to  work ;  and  if 
they  were  not  kept  constantly  under  the  eye  and  discipline 
of  a  superior,  so  great  were  their  natural  listlessness  and  in- 
difference, that  they  would  neither  attend  to  religious  instruc- 
tion, nor  observe  those  rights  of  Christianity  which  they  had 
been  already  taught.  Upon  all  these  accounts  the  superin- 
tendents found  it  necessary  to  tolerate  repartimientos,  and  to 
suffer  the  Indians  to  remain  under  subjection  to  their  Spanish 
masters."*  In  the  latter  part  of  his  reign,  Charles,  with  most 
imprudent  and  fatal  decision,  proclaimed  the  immediate  and 
universal  emancipation  of  all  the  Indians — and  precisely  what 
any  man  of  reflection  might  have  anticipated,  resulted.  Their 
industry  and  freedom  were  found  entirely  incompatible.  The 

*  Robertson's  America,  vol.  1,  p.  123. 
36* 


426  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

alarm  -was  instantaneously  spread  over  the  -whole  Spanish 
colonies.  Peru,  for  a  time  lost  to  the  monarchy,  was  only  re- 
stored by  the  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  law ;  and  in  New  Spain, 
quiet  was  only  preserved  by  a  combination  of  the  governor 
and  subjects  to  suspend  its  execution.  During  the  mad  career 
of  the  French  revolution,  the  .slaves  in  the  French  colonies 
were,  for  a  time,  liberated  ;  and  even  in  Cayenne,  where  the 
experiment  succeeded  best  in  consequence  of  the  paucity  of 
glaves,  it  completely  demonstrated  the  superiority  of  slave 
over  free  black  labor ;  and  generally  the  re-establishment  of 
slavery  was  attended  with  the  most  happy  consequences,  and 
even  courted  by  the  negroes  themselves,  who  became  heartily 
tired  of  their  'short-lived  liberty.  Of  the  great  experiment 
which  has  been  recently  made  in  Colombia  and  Guatemala, 
we  shall  presently  speak.  We  believe  it  has  completely 
proved  the  same  well  established  fact — the  great  superiority 
of  slave  over  free  negro  labor. 

Mr.  Clarkson,  in  his  pamphlet  on  slavery,  has  alluded  in 
terms  of  high  commendation  to  an  experiment  made  in  Bar- 
badoes,  on  Mr.  St6ele's  plantation,  which,  he  contends,  lias 
proved  the  safety  and  facility  of  the  transition  from  slave  to 
free  labor.  It  seems  Mr.  Steele  parcelled  out  his  land  among 
his  negroes,  and  paid  them  wages  for  their  labor.  Now,  we 
invite  particularly  the  attention  of  our  readers  to  the  following 
extracts  from  the  letter  of  Mr.  Sealy,  a  neighbor  of  Mr.  Steele, 
which  will  not  only  serve  to  establish  our  position,  but  afford 
an  illustration  of  the  melancholy  fact,  that  the  best  of  men 
cannot  be  relied  on  when  under  the  influence  of  prejudice  and 
passion.  "It  so  happened,"  says  Mr.  Sealy,  "that  I  resided 
on  the  nearest  adjoining  estate  to  Mr.  Steele,  and  superintend- 
ed the  management  of  it  myself  for  many  years ;  I  had,  there- 
fore, a  better  opportunity  of  forming  an  opinion  than  Mr. 
Clarkson  can  have — he  has  read  Mr.  Steele's  account — /  wit- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  OK  SLAVERY.  42*7 

nessed  the  operations  and  effects  of  his  plans.  He  possesses 
one  of  the  largest  and  most  seasonable  plantations,  in  a  de- 
lightful part  of  the  island  ;  with  all  these  advantages,  his  estate 
was  never  in  as  good  order  as  those  in  the  same  neighbor- 
hood, and  the  crops  were  neither  adequate  to  the  size  and 
resources  of  the  estate,  nor  in  proportion  to  those  of  other  es- 
tates in  the  same  part  of  the  island.  Finally,  after  an  experi- 
ment of  thirty  years  under  Mr.  Steele,  and  his  executor,  Mr. 
T.  Bell,  Mr.  Steele's  debts  remained  unpaid,  and  the  planta- 
tion was  sold  by  a  decree  of  the  Court  of  Chancery.  After 
the  debts  and  costs  of  suit  were  paid,  very  little  remained  out 
of  45,OOOZ.  to  go  to  the  residuary  legatees. 

"  It  was  very  well  known  that  the  negroes  rejoiced  when 
the  change  took  place,  and  thanked  their  God  that  they  were 
relieved  from  the  copyhold  system.  Such  was  the  final  result 
and  success  that  attended  this  system,  which  has  been  so 
much  eulogized  by  Mr.  Clarkson.  After  the  estate  was  sold 
and  the  system  changed,  I  had  equally  an  opportunity  of  ob- 
serving the  management,  and  certainly  the  manifest  improve- 
ment was  strong  evidence  in  favor  of  the  change.  Fields, 
which  had  been  covered  with  bushes  for  a  series  of  years, 
were  brought  into  cultivation,  and  the  number  of  pounds  of 
sugar  was  in  some  years  more  than  doubled  under  the  new 
management :  the  provision  crops  also  were  abundant ;  con- 
sequently, the  negroes  and  stock  were  amply  provided  for." 
Again  :  the  Attorney-General  of  Barbadoes  corroborates  the 
statements  of  Mr.  Sealy  in  the  most  positive  terms.  He  says, 
"  I  was  surprised  to  see  it  asserted  lately  in  print,  that  his, — 
Steele's  plantation, — succeeded  well  under  the  management. 
/  know  'it  to  be  false.  It  failed  considerably ;  and  had  he 
lived  a  few  years  longer,  he  would  have  died  not  worth  a 
farthing.  Upon  his  death,  they  reverted  to  the  old  system,  to 
which  the  slaves  readily  and  willingly  returned  ;  the  planta- 


. 

428  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

tion  now  succeeds,  and  the  slaves  are  contented  and  happy, 
and  think  themselves  much  better  off  than  under  the  copy- 
hold system,  for  their  wages  would  not  afford  them  many 
comforts  which  they  have  now."*  (Upon  this  subject  see  No. 
LX.  London  Quarterly.  ART  —  West  India  Colonies.)  But 
a  short  time  since,  a  highly  respectable,  and  one  of  the  most 
intelligent  farmers  of  Virginia,  informed  us  that  he  had  actu- 
ally tried,  upon  a  much  smaller  scale,  a  similar  experiment, 
and  that  it  entirely  failed ;  the  negroes,  devoid  of  judgment 
and  good  management,  became  lazy  and  improvident,  and 
every  time  one  was  so  unfortunate  as,  to  fall  sick,  it  immedi- 
ately became  necessary  to  support  him.  The  whole  plan  soon 
disgusted  the  master,  and  proved  that  the  free  labor  system 
would  not  answer  for  the  best  of  our  negroes  ;  for  those  he  tried 
were  his  best.  Now  these  experiments  were  the  more  con- 
clusive, because  the  master  reserved  the  right  of  re-imposing 
slavery  upon  them  in  case  the  experiment  should  not  meet 
his  approbation :  every  stimulus  was  thus  offered,  in  case  their 
f  reedom  was  really  desirable,  to  work  hard,  but  their  natural 

*  If  it  were  not  that  the  experiment  would  be  too  dangerous  and 
costly,  we  would  have  no  objection  to  see  our  slaves  gratified  with  the 
enjoyment  of  freedom  for  a  short  time.  There  is  no  doubt  but  that 
they,  like  the  Poles,  Livonians,  &c.,  and  the  negroes  of  Mr.  Steele, 
would  soon  ,sigh  again  for  a  master's  control,  and  a  master's  support 
and  protection.  It  is  a  well  known  fact  that  upon  the  borders  of  the 
free  States,  our  slaves  are  not  so  much  disposed  to  elope,  as  those  who 
are  situated  further  off;  and  the  reason  is,  they  are  near  enough_to  wit- 
ness the  condition  of  the  free  black  laborer,  and  they  know  it  is  far  more 
wretched  than  their  own.  A  citizen  of  the  West,  who  is  as  well  acquaint- 
ed with  this  whole  subject  as  any  other  in  the  State  or  in  the  United 
States,  informed  us,  a  short  time  since,  that  the  slaves  of  Botetourt  and 
Montgomery  were  much  more  disposed  to  elope  and  settle  in  Ohio,  than 
those-of  Cabel  and  Mason,  situated  on  the  borders — because  the  former 
are  not  so  well  acquainted  with  the  real  condition  of  the  free  blacks  as 
the  latter. 


* 

PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  429 

indolence  and  carelessness  triumphed  over  love  of  liberty,  and 
demonstrated  the  fact,  that  free  labor,  made  out  of  slaves,  is 
the  worst  in  the  world.  ) 

So  far  we  have  adduced  instances  from  among  mixed  pop 
ulations  alone.  Some  have  imagined  that  the  indolence  of 
liberated  blacks  in  these  cases,  has  arisen  entirely  from  the 
presence  of  the  whites,  acknowledged  to  be  the  superior  race 
both  by  law  and  custom  ;  that,  consequently,  if  the  blacks 
could  be  freed  from  the  degrading  influence  exerted  by  the 
mere  pressure  of  the  whites,  they  would  quickly  manifest 
more  desire  to  accumulate  and  acquire  all  the  industrious 
habits  of  the  English  opeiative  or  New  England  laborer,  Al- 
though this  is  foreign  to  our  immediate  object,  which  is  to 
prove  the  inefficacy  of  free  black  labor  in  our  country,  where, 
of  course,  whites  must  always  be  present,  we  will,  nevertheless, 
examine  this  opinion,  because  it  has  been  urged  in  favor  of 
that  grand  scheme  of  col$nization  recommended  by  some  of 
the  orators  in  the  Virginia  Legislature.  Our  own  opinion 
is,  that  the  presence  of  tie  whites  ought  rather  to  be  an  in- 
centive and  encouragement  to  labor.  Habits  of  industry  are 
more  easily  acquired  when  all  are  busy  and  active  around  us. 
A-  man  feels  a  spirit  of  industry  and  activity  stir  within  him, 
from  moving  amongst  such  societies  as  those  of  Marseilles, 
Liverpool,  and  New  Yorkj  where  the  din  of  business  and  bus- 
tle assails  his  ears  at  every  turn,  whereas,  he  soon  becomes 
indolent  and  listless  at  Bajjh  or  Saratoga.  Why,  then,  are  our 
colored  free  men  so  generally  indolent  and  worthless  among 
the  industrious  and  enterjrisihg  citizens  of  even  our  Northern 
and  New  England  States  f  It  is  because  there  is  an  inherent 
and  intrinsic  cause  at  work,  which  will  produce  its  effect  un- 
der all  circumstances.  In  .the  free  black,  the  principle  of  idle- 
ness and  dissipation  triumphs  over  that  of  accumulation  and 
the  desire  to  better  our  condition  ;  the  animal  part  of  the 


430  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

man  gains  the  victory  over  the  moral,  and  he,  consequently, 
prefers  sinking  down  into  the  listless,  inglorious  repose  of  the 
brute  creation,  to  rising  to  that  energetic  activity  which  can 
only  be  generated  amid  the  multiplied,  refined,  and  artificial 
wants  of  civilized  society.  The  very  conception  which  nine 
slaves  in  ten  have  of  liberty,  is  that  of  idleness  and  sloth  with 
the  enjoyment  of  plenty  ;  and  we  are  not  to  wonder  that 
they  should  hasten  to  practice  upon  their  theory  so  soon  as 
liberated.  But  the  experiment  has  been  sufficiently  tried  to 
prove  most  conclusively  that  the  free  black  will  work  nowhere 
except  by  compulsion. 

St.  Domingo  is  often  spoken  of  by  philanthropists  and 
schemers  ;  the  trial  has  there  been  made  upon  a  scale  suffi- 
ciently grand  to  test  our  opinions,  and  we  are  perfectly  will- 
ing to  abide  the  result  of  the  experiment. 

The  main  purpose  of  the  mission  of  Consul-General  Mc- 
Kenzie,  to  Hayti,  by  the  British  Government,  was  to  clear  up 
this  very  question.  We  have  made  every  exertion  to  pro' 
cure  the  very  valuable  notes  of  that  gentleman,  on  Hayti, 
but  have  failed  ;  we  are,  therefore,  obliged  to  rely  upon  the 
eighty-ninth  numbers  of  the  London  Quarterly,  in  one  article 
of  which  mention  is  made  of  the  result  of  M'Kenzie's  obser- 
vations. "By  all  candid  persons,''  says  the  Review,  "the 
deliberate  opinion  which  that  able  man  has  formed  from  care- 
ful observation,  and  the  whole  tenor  of  the  evidence  he  has 
furnished,  will  be  thought  conclusive.  Such  invincible  repug- 
nance do  the  free  negroes  of  that  Island  feel  to  labor,  that 
the  system  of  the  code  rural  of  1826,  about  the  genuineness 
of  which  so  much  doubt  was  entertained  a  few  years  ago,  is 
described  as  falling  little  short  of  the  compulsion  to  which  the 
slaves  had  been  subjected  previous  to  their  emancipation. 
'  The  consequences  of  delinquincy,'  he  says,  '  are  heavy  fine 
and  imprisonment,  and  the  provisions  o<  the  law  are  as  despotic 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 


431 


as  can  well  be  conceived.'  He  afterwards  subjoins  : — Such, 
have  been  the  various  modes  for  inducing  or  compelling  labor 
for  nearly  forty  years.  It  is  next  necessary  to  ascertain,  as 
far  as  it  is  practicable,  the  degree  of  success  which  has  attend- 
ed each  ;  and  the  only  mode  with  which  I  am  acquainted,  is 
to  give  the  returns  of  the  exported  agricultural  produce  dur- 
ing the  same  period,  marking,  where  it  can  be  done,  any  ac- 
cidental circumstance  that  may  have  had  an  influence.'  He 
then  quotes  the  returns  at  length,  and  observes — '  There  is 
one  decided  inference  from  the  whole  of  these  six  returns,  viz : 
the  positive  decrease  of  cane  cultivation,  in  all  its  branches — 
the  diminution  of  other  branches  of  industry,  though  not 
equally  well  marked,  is  no  less  certain,  than  the  articles  of 
spontaneous  growth  maintain,  if  not  exceed,  their  former 
amount.'  We  may  further  add,  that  even  the  light  labor  re- 
quired for  trimming  the  planting  coffee  trees,  has  been  so 
much  neglected,  that  the  export  of  coffee  in  1830,  falls  short 
of  that  of  1829,  by  no  less  than  10,000,000  Ibs."  (See  Lon- 
don Quarterly  Reviev),  No.  89,  Art.  West  India  Question.) 
We  subjoin  here,  to  exhibit  the  facts  asserted  by  Mr. 
M'Kenzie  in  a  more  striking  manner,  a  tabular  view  of  some 
of  the  principle  exports  from  St.  Domingo,  during  her  subjec- 
tion to  France,  and  during  the  best  years  of  the  reigns  of 
Toussaint,  Dessalines,  and  Boyer,*  upon  the  authority  of 
James  Franklin,  on  the  present  state  of  Hayti. 


Produce. 

French. 

Toussaint. 

Dessalines. 

Boyer. 

Sugar, 
Coffee, 
Cotton, 

1791. 
Ibs. 

163,405,220 
68,151,180 
6,286,126 

1802. 
1    Ibs. 
53400,000 
(84.370,000 
4,050,000 

1804. 
Ibs.  • 
47,600,000 
31  000,000 
3,000,000 

1822.1 
Ibs. 
652,541 
35,117,834 
891,950 

*  It  is  known  that  under  Bbyer  there  was  a  union  of  the  Island  un- 
der one  government. 
}  The  other  years  give  the  returns  of  the  French  part  of  the  Island; 


432       f  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

There  has  been  a  gradual  diminution  of  the  amount  of  the 
products  of  Hayti,  since  1822.  In  1825,  the  whole  value  of 
exports  was  about  18,000,000,  more  than  $1,000,000  less 
than  in  1822,  and  the  revenue  of  the  Island  was  not  equal  to 
the  public  expenditure.  Is  not  this  fair  experiment  for  forty 
years,  under  more  favorable  circumstances  than  any  reasonable 
man  had  a  right  to  anticipate,  sufficient  to  convince  and  over- 
whelm the  most  sceptical  as  to  the  unproductiveness  of  slave 
labor  converted  into  free  labor  ? 

But  the  British  colony  at  Sierra  Leone  is  another  case  in 
point,  to  establish  the  same  position.  Evidence  was  taken  in 
1830,  before  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Capt. 
Bullen,  R.  N.,  stated  that  at  Sierra  Leone,  they  gave  the 
blacks  a  portion  of  land  to  cultivate,  and  they  cultivate  just 
as  much  as  will  keep  them,  and  not  an  inch  more.  Mr.  Jack- 
son, one  of  the  Judges  of  the  mixed  Commission  Court,  being 
asked — "  Taking  into  consideration  the  situation  of  Sierra 
Leone,  and  the  attention  paid  by  government  to  promote 
their  comfort,  what  progress  have  they  made  towards  civiliza- 
tion or  the  comforts  of  civilized  life  ?"  makes  this  answer — "  I 
should  say  very  inadequate  to  the  efforts  which  have  been 
made  to  promote  their  comfort  and  civilization."  Capt. 
Spence,  being  asked  a  similar  question,  replies — "  I  have 
formed  a  very  different  opinion  as  to  their  progress  of  indus- 
try. I  have  not  been  able  to  observe  that  they  seem  inclined 
to  cultivate  the  country  farther  than  vegetables  and  things  of 
that  kind.  They  do  not  seem  inclined  to  cultivate  for  expor- 
tation. Their  wants  are  very  few,  and  they  are  very  wild  ; 
and  their  wants  are  supplied  by  the  little  exertion  they  make. 
They  have  sufficient  to  maintain  them  in  clothing  and  food, 
and  these  are  all  their  wants." 

this  for  the  Spanish  and  French,  ought  therefore,  to  be  proportionally 
greater. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  433 

Our  own  colony,  upon  the  coast  of  Africa  proves,  too,  the 
same  fact.  It  has  been  fed  slowly  and  cautiously,  with  emi- 
grants, and  yet  Mr.  Ashinun's  entreaties  to  colonization 
friends  in  the  United  States,  to  recollect  that  rice  did  not  grow 
spontaneously  in  Africa,  to  send  out  laboring  men,  of  good 
character,  <fcc.,  but  too  conclusively  show,  in  spite  of  the  col- 
ored and  exaggerated  statements  of  prejudiced  friends,  the 
great  difficulty  of  making  the  negroes  work  even  in  Liberia;* 
and  we  have  no  doubt,  that  if  6,000  or  60,000  could  be  col- 
onized annually  in  Africa,  there  would  not  be  a  more  worth- 
less and  indolent  race  of  people  upon  the  face  of  the  globe, 
than  our  African  colonies  would  exhibit. 

We  have  now,  we  think,  proved  our  position,  that  slave  la- 
bor, in  an  economical  point  of  view,  is  far  superior  to  free 
negro  labor  ;  and  have  no  doubt  that  if  an  immediate  eman- 
cipation of  negroes  were  to  take  place,  the  whole  southern 
country  would  be  visited  with  an  immediate  general  famine, 
from  which  the  productive  resources  of  all  the  other  States  of 
the  Union  could  not  deliver  them. 

It  is  now  easy  for  us  to  demonstrate  the  second  point  in  our 
argument — that  the  slave  is  not  only  economically  but  moral- 
ly unfit  for  freedom.  And  first,  idleness  and  consequent  want 
are,  of  themselves,  sufficient  to  generate  a  catalogue  of  vices 
of  the  most  mischievous  and  destructive  character.  Look  to 
the  penal  prosecution  of  every  country,  and  mark  the  situation 

*  W.e  understand,  from  most  undoubted  authority,  that  Mr.  Bar- 
hour,  a  negro  gentleman  from  Liberia,  who  lately  visited  the  Virginia 
Springs,  for  the  purpose  of  re-establishing  his  health,  which  had  given 
way  under  the  deleterious  influence  of  an  African  climate,  bears  most 
unequivocal  testimony  to  the  idleness  of  the  blacks  in  Liberia — thinks 
that  the  statement  which  has  been  generally  given  of  the  colony  great- 
ly exaggerated — considers  it  a  partial  failure  at  least ;  and  laughs  at 
the  idea  of  its  being  made  a  recipient  for  the  immense  and  rapidly 
increasing  mass  of  our  whole  black  population. 
37 


434  VROFESSOR  DEW   ON  SLAVERY. 

of  those  who  fall  victims  to  the  laws.  And  what  a  frightful 
proportion  do  we  find  among  the  indigent  and  idle  classes  of 
society  !  Idleness  generates  want,  want  gives  rise  to  tempta- 
tion, and  strong  temptation  makes  the  villain.  The  most  ap- 
propriate prayer  for  frail,  imperfect  man,  is  "  lead  us  not  into 
temptation."  Mr.  Archer,  of  Virginia,  well  observed  in  his 
speech,  before  the  Colonization  Society,  that  "  the  free  blacks 
were  destined  by  an  insurmountable  barrier — to  the  want  of 
occupation — thence  to  the  want  of  food — ;thence  to  the  dis- 
tresses which  ensue  from  that  want — thence  to  the  settled 
deprivation  which  grows  out  of  those  distresses,  and  is  nursed 
at  their  bosoms ;  and  this  condition  was  not  casualty,  but  fate. 
The  evidence  was  not  speculation  in  political  economy — it  was 
geometrical  demonstration." 

We  are  not  to  wonder  that  this  class  of  citizens  should  be 
so  depraved  and  immoral.  An  idle  population  will  always  be 
worthless  ;  and  it  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  they  are  only 
worthless  in  the  Southern  States,  where  it  is  erroneously  sup- 
posed the  slavery  of  a  portion  of  their  race  depress  them  below 
their  condition  in  the  free  States  ;  on  the  contrary,  we  are 
disposed  rather  to  think  their  condition  better  in  the  slave 
than  the  free  States.  Mr.  Everett,  in  a  speech  before  the 
Colonization  Society,  during  the  present  year,  says:  "they 
(the  free  blacks)  form,  in  Massachusetts,  about  one  seventy-fifth 
part  of  the  population  ;  one-sixth  of  the  convicts  in  our  prisons 
are  of  this  class."  The  average  number  of  annual  convictions 
in  the  State  of  Virginia,  estimated  by  the  late  Governor  Giles, 
from  the  penitentiary  reports,  up  to  1829,  is  seventy-one  for 
the  whole  population — making  one  in  every  sixteen-thousand 
of  the  white  population,  one  in  every  twenty-two  thousand  of 
the  slaves,  and  one  for  every  five  thousand  of  the  free  colored 
people.  Thus,  it  will  be  seen,  that  crimes  among  the  free 
blacks  are  more  than  three  times  as  numerous  as  among  the 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  435 

whites,  and  four  and  a  half  times  more  numerous  than  among 
the  slaves.  But,  although  the  free  blacks  have  thus  much 
the  largest  proportion  of  crime  to  answer  for,  yet  the  propor- 
tion is  not  so  great  in  Virginia  as  in  Massachusetts.  Although 
they  are  relatively  to  the  other  classes  more  numerous,  mak- 
ing the  one-thirtieth  of  the  population  of  the  State,  not  one- 
eighth  of  the  whole  number  of  convicts  are  from  among  them 
in  Virginia,  while  in  Massachusetts  there  is  one-sixth.  We 
may  infer,  then,  they  are  not  so  degraded  and  vicious  in  Vir- 
ginia, a  slaveholding  State,  as  in  Massachusetts,  a  non  slave- 
holding  State.  But  there  is  one  fact  to  which  we  invite 
particularly  the  attention  of  those  philanthropists  who  have  the 
elevation  of  Southern  slaves  so  much  at  heart — that  the  slaves 
in  Virginia  furnish  a  much  smaller  annual  proportion  of 
convicts  than  the  whites,  and  among  the  latter  a  very  large 
proportion  of  convicts  consist  of  foreigners  or  citizens  of  other 
States. 

There  is  one  disadvantage  attendant  upon  free  blacks,  in 
the  slaveholding  States,  which  is  not  felt  in  the  non-slave- 
holding.  In  the  former,  they  corrupt  the  slaves,  encourage 
them  to  steal  from  their  masters  by  purchasing  from  them, 
and  they  are,  too,  a  sort  of  moral  conductor  by  which  the 
slaves  can  better  organize  and  concert  plans  of  mischief  among 
themselves. 

So  far  we  have  been  speaking  of  the  evils  resulting  from 
mere  idleness  ;  but  there  are  other  circumstances  which  must 
not  be  omitted  in  an  enumeration  of  the  obstacles  to  emanci- 
pation. The  blacks  have  now  all  the  habits  and  feelings  of 
slaves,  the  whites  have  those  of  masters  ;  the  prejudices  are 
formed,  and  mere  legislation  cannot  improve  them.  "Give 
me,"  said  a  wise  man,  "  the  formation  of  the  habits  and  man- 
ners of  a  people,  and  I  care  not  who  makes  the  laws."  Declare 
the  negroes  of  the  South  free  to-morrow,  and  vain  will  be  your 


436  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

decree,  until  you  have  prepared  them  for  it ;  you  depress, 
instead  of  elevating.  The  law  would,  in  every  point  of  view, 
be  one  of  the  most  cruel  and  inhuman  which  could  possibly 
be  passed.  The  law  would  make  them  freemen,  and  custom 
or  prejudice,  we  care  not  which  you  call  it,  would  degrade 
them  to  the  condition  of  slaves ;  and  soon  should  we  see,  that 
"it  is  happened  unto  them,  according  to  the  true  proverb,  the 
dog  is  turned  to  his  own  vomit  again,  and  the  sovr  that  has 
been  washed,  to  her  wallowing  in  the  mire."  "  Ne  quid  ni- 
#m-"  should  be  our  maxim  ;  and  we  must  never  endeavor  to 
elevate  beyond  what  circumstances  will  allow.  It  is  better 
that  each  one  should  remain  in  society  in  the  condition  in 
which  he  has  been  born  and  trained,  and'  not  to  mount  too 
fast  without  preparation.  If  a  Virginia  or  South-Carolina 
farmer  wished  to  make  his  overseer  perfectly  miserable,  he 
could  not  better  do  it,  than  by  persuading  him  that  he  was 
not  only  a  freeman,  but  a  polished  gentleman  likewise,  and 
consequently,  induce  him  to  enter  his  drawing  room.  He 
would  soon  sigh  for  the  fields,  and  less  polished  but  more  suit- 
able companions.  Hence,  in  the  Southern  States,  the  condi- 
tion of  the  free  blacks  is  better  than  in  the  Northern  ;  in  the 
latter,  he  is  told,  that  he  is  a  freeman  and  entirely  equal  to 
the  white,  and  prejudice  assigns  to  him  a  degraded  station — 
light  is  furnished  him  by  which  to  view  the  interior  of  the 
fairy  palace  which  is  fitted  up  for  him,  and  custom  expels  him 
from  it,  after  the  law  has  told  him  it  was  his.  He,  conse- 
quently, leads  a  life  of  endless  mortification  and  disappoint- 
ment. Tantalus  like,  he  has  frequently  the  cup  to  his  lips, 
and  imperious  custom  dashes  it  untasted  from  him.  In  the 
Southern  States,  law  and  custom  more  generally  coincide  :  the 
former  makes  no  profession  which  the  latter  does  not  sanction, 
and  consequently,  the  free  black  has  nothing  to  grieve  and 
disappoint  him. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  43  Y 

We  have  already  said,  in  the  course  of  this  review,  that  if 
we  were  to  liberate  the  slaves,  we  could  not,  in  fact,  alter  their 
condition — they  would  still  be  virtually  slaves  ;  talent,  habit, 
and  wealth,  would  make  the  white  the  master  still,  and  the 
emancipation  would  only  have  the  tendency  to  deprive  him 
of  those  sympathies  and  kind  feelings  for  the  black  which  now 
characterize  him.  Liberty  has  been  the  heaviest  curse  to  the 
slave,  when  given  too  soon  ;  we  have  already  spoken  of  the 
eagerness  and  joy  with  which  the  negroes  of  Mr.  Steele,  in 
Barbadoes,  returned  to  a  state  of  slavery.  The  east  of  Europe 
affords  hundreds  of  similar  instances.  1791,  Stanislaus  Au- 
gustus, preparing  a  hopeless  resistance  to  the  threatened 
attack  of  Russia,  in  concert  with  the  states,  gave  to  Poland  a 
constitution  which  established  the  complete  personal  freedom 
of  the  peasantry.  The  boon  has  never  been  recalled,  and 
what  was  the  consequence  ?  "  Finding  (says  Jones,  in  his 
volume  on  Rents)  their  dependence  on  their  proprietors  for 
subsistence  remained  undiminished,  the  peasants  showed  no 
very  grateful  sense  of  the  boon  bestowed  upon  them ;  they 
feared  they  should  now  be  deprived  of  all  claim  upon  the 
proprietors  for  assistance,  when  calamity  or  infirmity  over- 
took them.  It  is  only  since  they  have  discovered  that  the 
connection  between  them  and  the  owners  of  the  estates  on 
which  they  reside  is  little  altered  in  practice,  and  that  their 
old  masters  very  generally  continue,  from  expediency  or  hu- 
manity, the  occasional  aid  they  formerly  lent  them,  that  they 
have  become  reconciled  to  their  new  character  of  freemen." 
"  The  Polish  boors  are,  therefore,  in  fact  still  slaves"  says 
Burnett,  in  his  '  View  of  the  present  state  of  Poland'  "  and 
relatively  to  their  political  existence,  absolutely  subject  to  the 
will  of  their  lord  as  in  all  the  barbarism  of  the  feudal  times.'' 
"  I  was  once  on  a  short  journey  with  a  nobleman,  when  we 
stopped  to  bait  at  a  farm-house  of  a  village.  The  peasants 
37* 


438  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

got  intelligence  of  the  presence  of  their  lord,  and  assembled 
in  a  body  of  twenty  or  thirty,  to  prefer  a  petition  to  him.  I 
was  never  more  struck  with  the  appearance  of  these  poor 
'wretches,  and  the  contrast  of  their  condition  with  that  of  their 
master :  I  stood  at  a  distance,  and  perceived  that  he  did  not 
yield  to  their  supplication.  When  he  dismissed  them,  I  had 
the  curiosity  to  inquire  the  object  of  their  petition,  and  he 
replied,  that  they  had  begged  for  an  increased  allowance  of 
land,  on  the  plea  that  what  they  had  was  insufficient  for  their 
support.  He  added,  '  I  did  not  grant  it  them  because  their 
present  allotments  is  the  usual  quantity,  and  as  it  has  sufficed 
hitherto,  s*o  I  know  it  will  in  time  to  come.  '  Besides,'  said 
he,  '  if  I  give  them  more,  I  well  know  that  it  will  not  in  real- 
ity better  their  circumstances.'  Poland  does  not  furnish  a 
man  of  more  humanity  than  the  one  who  rejected  this  appar- 
ently reasonable  petition  ;  but  it  must  be  allowed  that  he  had 
reasons  for  what  he  did.  Those  degraded  and  wretched  be- 
ings, instead  of  hoarding  the  small  surplus  of  their  absolute 
necessaries,  are  almost  universally  accustomed  to  expend  it  in 
that  abominable  spirit,  which  they  call  schnaps.  It  is  incred- 
ible what  quantities  of  this  pernicious  liquor  are  drunk  by  the 
peasant  men  and  women.  The  first  time  I  saw  any  of  these 
withered  creatures  was  at  Dantzic.  I  was  prepared  by  print- 
ed accounts,  to  expect  a  sight  of  singular  wretchedness  ;  but 
I  shrunk  involuntarily  from  the  sight  of  the  reality.  Some 
involuntary  exclamation  of  surprise,  mixed  with  compassion, 
escaped  me  ;  a  thoughtless  and  a  feelingless  person  (which 
are  about  the  same  thing)  was  standing  by — '  Oh,  sir,'  says 
he,  '  you  will  find  plenty  of  such  people  as  these  in  Poland  ; 
and  you  may  strike  them,  and  kick  them,  or  do  what  you 
please  with  them,  and  they  will  never  resist  you  :  they  dare 
not.'  Far  be  it  from  me  to  ascribe  the  feelings  of  this  man  to 
the  more  cultivated  and  humanized  Poles  ;  but  each  such  in- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  439 

cidental  and  thoughtless  expressions  betray  too  sensibly  the  gen- 
eral state  of  the  feeling  which  exists  in  regard  to  these  oppres- 
sed men."  The  traveller  will  now  look  in  vain,  throughout 
our  slaveholding  country,  for  such  misery  as  is  here  depicted ; 
and  in  spite  of  all  the  tales  told  by  gossipping  travellers,  he 
will  find  no  master  so  relentless  as  the  Polish  proprietor,  and 
no  young  man  so  "  thoughtless"  and  "  feelingless"  as  the 
young  Pole  above  mentioned.  But  liberate  our  slaves,  and  in 
a  very  few  years  we  shall  have  all  these  horrors  and  reproach- 
es added  unto  us. 

In  Livonia,  likewise,  the  serfs  were  permaturely  liberated  ; 
and  mark  the  consequences.  Von  Helen,  who  travelled  through 
Livonia  in  1819,  observes  :  "Along  the  high  road  through  Li- 
vonia are  found,  at  short  distances,  filthy  public  houses,  called 
in  the  country  Rhatcharuas,  before  the  doors  of  which  are 
usually  seen  a  multitude  of  wretched  carts  and  sledges  belong- 
ing to  the  peasants,  who  are  so  addicted  to  brandy  and 
strong  liquors,*  that  they  spend  whole  hours  in  those  places. 
Nothing  proves  so  much  the  state  of  barbarism  in  which  those 
men  are  sunk,  as  the  manner  in  which  they  received  the  de- 
cree issued  about  this  time.  These  savages,  unwilling  to  de- 
pend upon  their  own  exertions  for  support,  made  all  the  resis- 
tance in  their  power  to  that  decree,  the  execution  of  which 
was  at  length  entrusted  to  an  armed  force"  The  Livonian 
peasants,  therefore,  received  their  new  privileges  yet  more 
ungraciously  than  the  Poles,  though  accompanied  with  the 
gift  of  property  and  secure  means  of  subsistence,  if  they  chose 
to  exert  themselses.  By  an  edict  of  Maria  Theresa,  called  by 
the  Hungarians  the  ubarium,  personal  slavery  and  attachment 
to  the  soil  were  abolished,  and  the  peasants  declared  to  be 
"  hominus  liberce  transmigrationis ;"  and  yet,  says  Jones,  "  the 

*  We  believe,  in  case  of  an  emancipation  of  our  blacks,  that  drunk- 
enness would  be  among  them  like  the  destroying  angel. 


440  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

authority  of  the  owners  of  the  soil  over  the  persons  and  pro- 
perty of  their  tenantry  has  been  very  imperfectly  abrogated  ; 
the  necessities  of  the  peasants  oblige  them  frequently  to  resort 
to  their  landlords  for  loans  of  food ;  they  become  laden  with 
heavy  debts,  to  be  discharged  by  labor.*  The  proprietors 
retain  the  right  of  employing  them  at  pleasure,  paying  them, 
in  lieu  of  subsistence,  about  one-third  of  the  actual  value  of 
their  labor  ;  and  lastly,  the  administration  of  justice  is  still  in 
the  hands  of  the  nobles  ;  and  one  of  the  first  sights  which 
strikes  a  foreigner,  on  approaching  their  mansions,  is  a  sort  of 
low-frame  work  of  posts,  to^  which  a  serf  is  tied  when  it  is 
thought  proper  to  administer  the  discipline  of  the  whip,  for 
offences  which  do  not  seem  grave  enough  to  demand  a  formal 
trial!" 

Let  us  for  a  moment  revert  to  the  black  republic  of  Hayti, 
and  we  shall  see  that  the  negroes  have  gained  nothing  by 
their  bloody  revolution.  Mr.  Franklin,  who  derives  his  in- 
formation from  personal  inspection,  gives  the  following  account 
of  the  present  state  of  the  island :  "  Oppressed  with  the  weight 
of  an  overwhelming  debt,  contracted  without  an  equivalent, 
with  an  empty  treasury,  and  destitute  of  the  ways  and  means 
for  supplying  it ;  the  soil  almost  neglected,  or  at  least  very 
partially  tilled;  without  commerce  or  credit.  '  Such  is  the 
present  state  of  the  republic  ; '  and  it  seems  almost  impossible 
that,  under  the  system  which  is  now  pursued,  there  should 
be  any  amelioration  of  its  condition,  or  that  it  can  arrive  at 

*  Almost  all  our  free  negroes  will  run  in  debt  to  the  full  amount  of 
their  credit.  "  I  never  knew  a  free  negro  (says  an  intelligent  corres- 
pondent in  a  late  letter)  who  would  not  contract  debts,  if  allowed,  to  a 
greater  amount  than  he  could  pay  ;  and  those  whom  I  have  suffered 
to  reside  on  my  land,  although  good  mechanics,  have  been  generally 
so  indolent  and  impoverished  as  to  be  in  my  debt  at  the  end  of  the 
year,  for  provisions,  brandy,  <fec.,  when  I  would  allow  it." 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  441 

any  very  high  state  of  improvement.  Hence,  there  appears 
every  reason  to  apprehend  that  it  Avill  recede  into  irrecovera- 
ble insignificance,  poverty,  and  disorder.1 '  (p.  265.)  And 
the  great  mass  of  the  Haytiens  are  virtually  in  a  state  of  as 
abject  slavery  as  when  the  island  was  under  the  French  do- 
minion. The  government  soon  found  it  absolutely  necessary 
to  establish  a  system  of  compulsion  in  all  respects  as  bad,  and 
more  intolerable  than,  when  slavery  existed.  The  Code  Henri 
prescribed  the  most  mortifying  regulations,  to  be  obeyed  by 
the  laborers  of  the  island  ;  work  was  to  commence  at  day-light 
and  continue  uninterruptedly  till  eight  o'clock  ;  one  hour  was 
then  allowed  to  the  laborer  to  breakfast  on  the  spot ;  at  nine, 
work  commenced  again,  and  continued  until  twelve,  when  two 
hours  repose  was  given  to  the  laborer  •  at  two,  he  commenced 
again  and  worked  uniil  night.  All  these  regulations  were 
enforced  by  severe  penal  enactments.  Even  Toussaint  1'Ou- 
verture,  who  is  supposed  to  have  had  the  welfare  of  the 
negroes  as  much  at  heart  as  any  other  ruler  in  St.  Domingo, 
in  one  of  his  proclamations  in  the  ninth  year  of  the  French 
Republic,  peremptorily  directs — "all //re  laborers,  men  and 
women,  now  in  a  state  of  idleness,  and  living  in  towns,  vil- 
lages, and  on  other  plantations  than  those  to  which  they  belong, 
with  the  intention  to  evade  work,  even  those  of  both  sexes 
who  had  not  been  employed  in  field  labor  since  the  revolu- 
tion, are  required  to  return  immediately  to  their  respective 
plantations."  And  in  article  seven,  he  directs,  that  the  "  over- 
seers and  drivers  of  every  plantation  shall  make  it  their  busi- 
ness to  inform  the  commanding  officer  of  the  district  in  regard 
to  the  conduct  of  the  laborers  under  their  management,  as 
well  as  those  who  shall  absent  themselves  from  their  planta- 
tions without  a  pass,  and  of  those  who,  residing  on  the  plan- 
tations, shall  refuse  to  work  ;  they  shall  be  forced  to  go  to 
labor  in  the  field,  and  if  they  prove  obstinate,  they  shall  be 


442      .     '  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

arrested  and  carried  before  the  military  commandant,  in  order 
to  suffer  the  punishment  above  prescribed,  according  to  the 
exigence  of  the  case,  the  punishment  being  fine  and  imprison- 
ment." And  here  is  the  boasted  freedom  of  the  negroes  of 
St.  Domingo  :  the  appalling  vocabulary  of  "  overseer,"  "  dri- 
ver," "  pass,"  &c.,  is  not  even  abolished.  Slavery  to  the  gov- 
ernment and  its  military  officers  is  substituted  for  private  sla- 
very ;  the  black  master  has  stepped  into  the  shoes  of  the 
white  ;  and  we  all  know  that  he  is  the  most  cruel  of  masters, 
and  more  dreaded  by  the  negro  than  any  of  the  ten  plagues 
of  Egypt.  We  are  well  convinced  that  there  is  not  a  single 
negro  in  the  commonwealth  of  Virginia,  who  would  accept 
such  freedom  ;  and  yet  the  happiest  of  the  human  race  are 
constantly  invited  to  sigh  for  such  freedom,  and  to  sacrifice 
all  their  happiness  in  the  vain  wish.  But,  it  is  not  necessary 
further  to  multiply  examples  ;  enough  has  already  been  said, 
we  hope,  to  convince  the  most  sceptical  of  the  great  disadvan- 
tage to  the  slave  himself,  of  freedom,  when  he  is  not  prepared 
for  it.  It  is  unfortunate,  indeed,  that  prejudiced  and  misguid- 
ed philanthropists  so  often  assert  as  facts,  what,  on  investiga- 
tion, turns  out  not  only  false,  but  even  hostile  to  the  very 
theories  which  they  are  attempting  to  support  by  them.  We 
have  already  given  one  example  of  this  kind  of  deception,  in 
relation  to  Mr.  Steele.  We  will  now  give  another. 

"In  the  year  1760,  the  Chancellor  Zamoyski,"  says  Bur- 
nett, "enfranchised  six  villages  in  the  Palatinate  of  Masovia. 
This  experiment  has  been  much  vaunted  by  Mr.  Coxe,  as 
having  been  attended  with  all  the  good  effects  desired  ;  and 
he  asserts  that  the  Chancellor  had,  in  consequence,  enfran- 
chised the  peasants  on  all  his  estates.  Both  of  these  assertions 
are  false.  I  inquired  particularly  of  the  son  of  the  present 
Count  Zamoyski,  respecting  these  six  villages,  and  was  grieved 
to  learn,  that  the  experiment  had  completely  failed.  Tho 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  443 

Count  said,  that  within  a  few  years,  he  had  sold  the  estate  ; 
and  added,  I  was  glad  to  get  rid  of  it,  from  the  trouble  the 
peasants  gave  me.  These  degraded  beings,  on  receiving  their 
freedom,  were  overjoyed  at  they  knew  not  what,  having  no 
distinct  comprehension  of  what  freedom  meant ;  but  merely 
a  rude  notion  that  they  may  now  do  what  they  like.*  They 
ran  into  every  species  of  excess  and  extravagance  which  their 
circumstances  admitted.  Drunkenness,  instead  of  being  occa- 
sional, became  almost  perpetual  ;  riot  and  disorder  usurped 
the  place  of  quietness  and  industry  ;  the  necessary  labor  sus- 
pended, the  lands  were  worse  cultivated  than  before  ;  the  small 
rents  required  of  them  they  were  often  unable  to  pay."  (Bur- 
netfs  View  of  Poland,  p.  105.)  Indeed,  it  is  a  calamity  to 
mankind,  that  zealous  and  overheated  philanthropists  will  not 
suffer  the  truth  to  circulate,  when  believed  hostile  to  their 
visionary  schemes.  Such  examples  as  the  foregoing  ought  to 
be  known  and  attended  to.  They  would  prevent  a  great  deal 
of  that  impatient  silly  action  which  has  drawn  down  such, 
incalculable  misery,  so  frequently,  upon  the  human  family. 
"  There  is  a  time  for  all  things,"  and  nothing  in  this  world 
should  be  done  before  its  time.  An  emancipation  of  our 
slaves  would  check  at  once  that  progress  of  improvement 
which  is  now  so  manifest  among  them.  The  whites  would 
either  gradually  withdraw,  and  leave  whole  districts  or  settle- 
ments in  their  possession,  in  which  case  they  would  sink  rap- 
idly in  the  scale  of  civilization  ;  or,  the  blacks,  by  closer  inter- 
course, would  bring  the  whites  down  to  their  level.  In  the 
contact  between  the  civilized  and  uncivilized  man,  all  history 
and  experience  show,  that  the  former  will  be  sure  to  sink 
to  the  level  of  the  latter.  In  these  cases,  it  is  always  easier  to 

*  Precisely  such  a  notion  as  that  entertained  by  the  slaves  of  this 
country  and  the  West  Indies. 


444  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

descend  than  ascend,  and  nothing  will  prevent  thefadlis  des' 
census  but  slavery. 

The  great  evil,  however,  of  these  schemes  of  emancipation, 
remains  yet  to  be  told.  They  are  admirably  calculated  to 
excite  plots,  murders  and  insurrections  ;  whether  gradual  or 
rapid  in  their  operation,  this  is  the  inevitable  tendency.  In 
the  former  case,  you  disturb  the  quiet  and  contentment  of  the 
slave  who  is  left  unemancipated ;  and  he  becomes  the  mid- 
night murderer  to  gain  that  fatal  freedom  whose  blessings  he 
does  not  comprehend.  In  the  latter  case,  want  and  invidious 
distinction  will  prompt  to  revenge.  Two  totally  different 
races,  as  we  have  before  seen,  cannot  easily  harmonize  together, 
and  although  we  have  no  idea  that  any  organized  plan  of  in- 
surrection or  rebellion  can  ever  secure  for  the  black  the  supe- 
riority, even  when  free,*  yet  his  idleness  will  produce  want 
and  worthlessness,  and  his  very  worthlessness  and  degradation 
will  stimulate  him  to  deeds  of  rapine  and  vengeance ;  he  will 
oftener  engage  in  plots  and  massacres,  and  thereby  draw  down 
on  his  devoted  head,  the  vengeance  of  the  provoked  whites. 
But  one  limited  massacre  is  recorded  in  Virginia  history  ;  let 
her  liberate  her  slaves,  and  every  year  you  would  hear  of  in- 
surrections and  plots,  and  every  day  would  perhaps  record  a 
murder  ;  the  melancholy  tale  of  Southampton  would  not  alone 
blacken  the  page  of  our  history,  and  make  the  tender  mother 
shed  the  tear  of  horror  over  her  babe  as  she  clasped  it  to  her 
bosom  ;  others  of  a  deeper  dye  would  thicken  upon  us ;  those 
regions  where  the  brightness  of  polished  life  has  dawned  and 
brightened  into  full  day,  would  relapse  into  darkness,  thick 
and  full  of  horrors,  and  in  those  dark  and  dismal  hours,  we 
might  well  exclaim,  in  the  shuddering  language  of  the  poet: 

*  Power  can  never  be  dislodged  from  the  hands  of  the  intelligent, 
the  wealthy,  and  the  courageous,  by  any  plans  that  can  be  formed  by 
the  poor,  the  ignorant,  and  the  habitually  subservient ;  history  scarce 
furnishes  such  an  example- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  445 

"  Nox  atra  cava  circumvolat  umbra 
Quis  cladcm  illius  noctis,  quis  funera  fando 
Explicit?  *  *  * 

Urbs  antiqua  ruit,  multos  dominata  per  annos 
Plurima  perque  vias  sternunter  inertia  passim 
Corpora  per  que  domos,  et  religiosa  deorum 
Limina.         *         *         Crudelis  ubique 
Luctus  ubique  pavor,  et  plurima  mortis  imago. " 

Colombia  and  Guatemala  have  tried  the  dangerous  experi- 
ment of  ema'ncipation,  and  we  invite  the  attention  of  the 
reader  to  the  following  dismal  picture  of  the  city  of  Guatemala, 
drawn  by  the  graphic  pencil  of  Mr.  Dunn  :  "  With  lazaroni 
in  rags  and  filth,  a  colored  population  drunken  and  revengeful, 
her  females  licentious,  and  her  males  shameless,  she  ranks  as 
a  true  child  of  that  accursed  city,  which  still  remains  as  a  living 
monument  of  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  and  the  forbearance 
of  God,  the  hole  of  every  foul  spirit,  the  cage  of  every  unclean 
and  hateful  bird.  The  pure  and  simple  sweets  of  domestic 
life,  with  its  thousand  tendernesses  and  its  gentle  affections 
are  here  exchanged  for  the  feverish  joys  of  a  dissipated  hour ; 
and  the  peaceful  home  of  love  is  converted  into  a  theatre  of 
mutual  accusations  and  recriminations.  This  leads  to  violent 
excesses  ;  men  carry  a  large  knife  in  a  belt,  women  one  fast- 
ened in  the  garter.  Not  a  day  passes  without  murder  ;  on 
fast  days  and  on  Sundays,  the  average  number  killed  is  from 
four  to  five.  From  the  number  admitted  into  the  hospital  of 
St.  Juan  de  Dios,  it  appears  that  in  the  year  1827,  near  fifteen 
hundred  were  stabbed,  of  whom  from  three  to  four  hundred 
died."  *  Thank  Heaven,  no  such  scenes  as  these  have  yet 
been  witnessed  in  our  country.  From  the  day  of  the  arrival 
of  the  negro  slaves  upon  our  coast  in  the  Dutch  vessel,  up  to 
the  present  hour,  a  period  of  more  than  two  hundred  years, 

*  See  Dunn's  Sketches   of  Guatemala,  in  1827  and  1828,  pp.  95, 
96,  and  07. 
38 


446  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

there  have  not  perished  in  the  whole  southern  countryrby  the 
hands  of  slaves,  a  number  of  whites  equal  to  the  average  an- 
nual stabbings  in  the  city  of  Guatemala,  containing  a  popula- 
tion of  30,000  souls !  "  Nor  is  the  freed  African,"  says 
Dunn,  u  one  degree  raised  in  the  scale — under  fewer  restraints, 
his  vices  display  themselves  rrtbre  disgustingly  ;  insolent  and 
proud,  indolent  and  a  liar,  be  imitates  only  the  vices  of  his 
superiors,  and  to  the  catalogue  of  his  former  crimes  adds 
drunkenness  and  theft."  Do  not  all  these  appalling  examples 
but  too  eloquently  tell  the  consequences  of  emancipation,  and 
bid  us  well  beware  how  we  enter  on  any  system  which  will  be 
almost  certain  to  bring  down  ruin  and  degradation  both  on 
the  whites  and  the  blacks. 

But  in  despite  of  all  the  reasoning  and  illustrations  which 
can  be  urged,  the  example  of  the  northern  States  of  our  con- 
federacy and  the  west  of  Europe  afford,  it  is  thought  by  some, 
conclusive  evidence  of  the  facility  of  changing  the  slave  into 
the  freeman.  As  to  the  former,  it  is  enough  to  say  that 
paucity  of  numbers,*  uncongenial  climate,  and  the  state  of 
agriculture  to  the  North,  together  with  the  great  demand  of 
slaves  to  the  South,  alone  accomplished  the  business.  In 
reference  to  the  west  of  Europe,  it  was  the  rise  of  the  towns, 
the  springing  up  of  a  middle  class,  and  a  change  of  agriculture, 
which  gradually  and  silently  effected  the  emancipation  of  the 
slaves,  in  a  great  measure  through  the  operation  of  the  selfish 
principle  itself.  Commerce  and  manufactures  arose  in  the 
western  countries,  and  with  them  sprang  up  a  middle  class  of 
freemen,  in  the  cities  and  the  country  too,  which  gradually 
and  imperceptibly  absorbed  into  its  body  all  the  slaves.  But 
for  this  middle  class,  which  acted  as  the  absorbent,  the  slaves 

*  "  There  are  more  free  negroes  and  mulattoes  (said  Judge  Tucker 
in  1803)  in  Virginia  alone,  than  are  to  be  found  in  the  four  New 
Kngland  States,  and  Vermont  in  addition  to  them." — (Tucker's  Black 
stone,  vol.  1,  part  2d,  p.  66,  foot  note.) 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  44*T 

could  not  have  been  liberated  with,  safety  or  advantage  to 
either  party.  Now,  in  our  southern  country,  there  is  no  body 
of  this  kind  to  become  tlie  absorbent,  nor  are  we  likely  to  have 
such  a  body,  unless  we  look  into  the  vista  of  the  future,  and 
imagine  a  time  when  the  south  shall  be  to  the  north,  what 
England  now  is  to  Ireland,  and  will  consequently  be  overrun 
with  northern  laborers,  underbidding  the  means  of  subsistence 
which  will  be  furnished  to  the  negro  :  then,  perhaps,  such  a 
laboring  class,  devoid  of  all  pride  and  habits  of  lofty  bearing, 
may  become  a  proper  recipient  or  absorbent  for  emancipated 
slaves.  But  even  then,  we  fear  the  effects  of  difference  of  color. 
The  slave  of  Italy  or  France  could  be  .emancipated  or  escape 
to  the  city,  and  soon  all  records  of  his  former  state  would 
perish,  and  he  would  gradually  sink  into  the  mass  of  freemen 
around  him.  But,  unfortunately,  the  emancipated  black  carries 
a  mark  which  no  time  can  erase;  he  forever  wears  the  in- 
delible symbol  of  his  inferior  condition  ;  the  Ethiopian  cannot 
change  his  skin,  nor  the  leopard  his  spots. 

In  Greece  and  Rome — and  we  imagine  it  was  so  during 
the  feudal  ages — the  domestic  slaves  were  frequently  among 
the  most  learned,  virtuous,  and  intelligent  members  of  society. 
Terrence,  Phsedrus,  ^Esop,  and  Epicetus,  were  all  slaves. 
They  were  frequently  taught  all  the  arts  and  sciences,  in  order 
that  they  might  be  more  valuable  to  their  masters.  "  Seneca 
relates,"  says  Wallace,  in  his  Numbers  of  Mankind,  "that 
Calvisius  Labinus  had  many  Anagnosre  slaves,  or  such  as 
were  learned  and  could  read  to  their  masters,  and  that  none 
of  them  were  purchased  under  SOIL  5s.  Wd.  According  to 
Pliny,  Daphnis,  the  grammarian,  cost  5651?.  10s.  10e?. 
Roscius,  the  actor,  would  gain  yearly  4Q3GI.  9s.  2d.  A  morio, 
or  fool,  was  sold  for  161/.  9s.  2rf."  (Wallace,  on  the  Num- 
bers of  Mankind,  page  142.)  There  was  no  obstacle,  there- 
fore, to  the  emancipation  of  such  men  as  these,  (except  as  to 


448  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

the  fool,)  either  on  the  score  of  color,  intelligence,  habits,  or 
anything  else — the  body  of  freemen  could  readily  and  without 
difficulty  or  danger  absorb  them.  Not  so  now — nor  will  it  be 
in  all  time  to  come,  with  our  blacks.  With  these  remarks, 
we  shall  close  our  examination  of  the  plans  by  which  it  has 
been  or  may  be  proposed  to  get  rid  of  slavery.  If  our  argu- 
ments are  sound,  and  reasonings  conclusive,  we  have  shown 
they  are  all  wild  and  visionary,  calculated  to  involve  the  south 
in  ruin  and  degradation ;  and  we  now  most  solemnly  call 
upon  the  statesman  and  the  patriot,  the  editor  and  the  phi- 
lanthropist, to  pause,  and  consider  well,  before  they  move  in 
this  dangerous  and  delicate  business.  But  a  few  hasty  and 
fatal  steps  in  advance,  and  the  work  may  be  irretrievable. 
For  Heaven's  sake,  then,  let  us  pause,  and  recollect,  that  on 
this  subject,  so  pregnant  with  the  safety,  happiness,  and  pros- 
perity of  millions,  we  shall  be  doomed  to  realize  the  fearful 
motto,  "  nulla  vestigia  retrorsum." 

There  are  some  who,  in  the  plenitude  of  their  folly  and 
recklessness,  have  likened  the  cause  of  the  blacks  to  Poland 
and  France,  and  have  darkly  hinted  that  the  same  aspirations 
which  the  generous  heart  breathes  for  the  cause  of  bleeding, 
suffering  Poland  and  revolutionary  France,  must  be  indulged 
for  the  insurrectionary  blacks.  And  has  it  come  at  last  to 
this :  that  the  hellish  plots  and  massacres  of  Dessalines,  Ga- 
briel and  Nat  Turner,  are  to  be  compared  to  the  noble  deeds 
and  devoted  patriotism  of  Lafayette,  Kosciusko,  and  Schry- 
necki  ?  and  we  suppose  the  same  logic  would  elevate  Lundy 
and  Garrison  to  niches  in  the  Temple  of  Fame,  by  the  side  of 
Locke  and  Rousseau.  There  is  an  absurdity  in  this  conception, 
which  so  outrages  reason  and  the  most  common  feelings  of 
humanity,  as  to  render  it  unworthy  of  serious,  patient  refuta- 
tion. But  we  will,  nevertheless,  for  a  moment  examine  it, 
and  shall  find,  on  their  own  principles,  if  such  reasoners  have 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  449    . 

any  principles,  that  their  conception  is  entirely  fallacious. 
The  true  theory  of  the  right  of  revolution  we  conceive  to  be 
the  following :  no  men,  or  set  of  men,  are  justifiable  in  attempt- 
ing a  revolution  which  must  certainly  fail ;  or  if  successful, 
must  produce  necessarily  a  much  worse  state  of  things  than, 
the  pre-existent  order.  We  have  not  the  right  to  plunge  the 
dagger  into  the  monarch's  bosom,  merely  because  he  is  a 
monarch — we  must  be  sure  it  is  the  only  means  of  dethroning 
a  tyrant  and  giving  peace  and  happiness  to  an  aggrieved  and 
suffering  people.  Brutus  would  have  had  no  right  to  kill 
Caesar,  if  he  could  have  foreseen  the  consequences.  If  France 
and  Poland  had  been  peopled  with  a  race  of  serfs  and  degraded 
citizens,  totally  unfit  for  freedom  and  self-government,  and 
Lafayette  and  Kosciusko  could  have  known  it,  they  would 
have  been  parricides,  instead  of  patriots,  to  have  roused  such 
ignorant  and  unhappy  wretches  to  engage  in  a  revolution, 
whose  object  they  could  not  comprehend,  and  which  would 
inevitably  involve  them  in  all  the  horrors  of  relentless  carnage 
and  massacre.  No  man.  has  ever  yet  contended  that  the 
blacks  could  gain  their  liberty  and  an  ascendancy  over  the 
whites  by  wild  insurrections;  no  one  has  ever  imagined  that 
they  could  do  more  than  bring  down,  by  their  rash  and  bar- 
barous achievements,  the  vengeance  of  the  infuriated  whites 
upon  their  devoted  heads.'  Where,  then,  is  the  analogy  to 
Poland  and  to  France, — lands  of  generous  achievement,  of 
learning,  and  of  high  and  noble  purposes,  and  with  people 
capable  of  self-government  ?  We  shall  conclude  this  branch 
of  our  subject  with  the  following  splendid  extract  from  a  speech 
of  Mr.  Canning,  which  should  at  least  make  the  rash  legislator 
more  distrustful  of  his  specifics  : 

"  In  dealing  with  a  negro,  we  must  remember  that  we  are 
dealing  with  a  being  possessing  the  form  and  strength  of  a 
man,  but  the  intellect  only  of  a  child.     To  turn  him  loose  in 
38* 


450  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON   SLAVERY. 

the  manhood  of  his  physical  passions,  but  in  the  infancy  of 
his  uninstructed  reason,  would  be  to  raise  up  a  creature  re- 
sembling the  splendid  fiction  of  a  recent  romance ;  the  hero  of 
•which  constructs  a  human  form  with  all  the  physical  capa- 
bilities of  man,  and  with  the  thews  and  sinews  of  a  giant,  but 
being  unable  to  impart  to  the  work  of  his  hands  a  perception 
of  right  and  wrong,  he  finds  too  late  that  he  has  only  created 
a  more  than  mortal  power  of  doing  mischief,  and  himself  re- 
coils from  the  monster  which  he  has  made.  What  is  it  we 
have  to  deal  with  ?  is  it  an  evil  of  yesterday's  origin  ?  with  a 
thing  which  has  grown  up  in  our  time  ?  of  which  we  have 
watched  the  growth — measured  the  extent — and  which  we 
have  ascertained  the  means  of  correcting  or  controlling  ?  No, 
we  have  to  deal  with  an  evil  which  is  the  growth  of  centuries  ; 
which  is  almost  coeval  with  the  deluge ;  which  has  existed 
under  different  modifications  since  man  was  man.  Do  gentle- 
men, in  their  passion  for  legislation,  think,  that  after  only 
thirty  years  discussion,  they  can  now  at  once  manage  as  they 
will,  the  most  unmanageable,  perhaps,  of  all  subjects  ?  Or 
do  we  forget,  sir,  that  in  fact  not  more  than  thirty  years  have 
elapsed  since  we  first  presumed  to  approach  even  the  outworks 
of  this  great  question.  Do  we,  in  the  ardor  of  our  nascent 
reformation,  forget  that  during  the  ages  which  this  system  has 
existed,  no  preceding  generation  of  legislators  has  ventured  to 
1  ouch  it  with  a  reforming  hand  ;  and  have  we  the  vanity  to 
\  atter  ourselves  that  we  can  annihilate  it  at  a  blow  ?  No,  sir, 
o !  If  we  are  to  do  good,  it  is  not  to  be  done  by  sudden  and 
Tiolent  measures."  Let  the  warning  language  of  Mr.  Canning 
be  attended  to  in  our  legislative  halls,  and  all  rash  and  intem- 
perate legislation  avoided.  We  will  now  proceed  to  the  last 
division  of  our  subject,  and  examine  a  little  into  the  injustice 
and  evils  of  slavery,  with  the  view  of  ascertaining  if  we  are 
really  exposed  to  those  dangers  and  horrors  which  many  seem 
to  anticipate  in  the  current  of  time. 


%.  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

///.  Injustice  and  Evils  of  Slavery. — 1st.  It  is  said  slavery 
is  wrong,  in  the  abstract  at  least,  and  contrary  to  the  spirit  of 
Christianity.  To  this  we  answer  as  before,  that  any  question 
must  be  determined  by  its  circumstances,  and  if,  as  really  is 
the  case,  we  cannot  get  rid  of  slavery  without  producing  a 
greater  injury  to  both  the  masters  and  slaves,  there  is  no  rule 
of  conscience  or  revealed  law  of  God  which  can  condemn  us. 
The  physician  will  not  order  the  spreading  cancer  to  be  extir- 
pated, although  it  will  eventually  cause  the  death  of  his  patient, 
because  he  would  thereby  hasten  the  fatal  issue.  So,  if  slavery 
had  commenced  even  contrary  to  the  laws  of  God  and  man, 
and  the  sin  of  its  introduction  rested  upon  our  heads,  and  it 
was  even  carrying  forward  the  nation  by  slow  degrees  to  final 
ruin — yet,  if  it  were  certain  that  an  attempt  to  remove  it 
would  only  hasten  and  heighten  the  final  catastrophe — that  it 
was,  in  fact,  a"vulnus  immedicabile "  on  the  body  politic 
which  no  legislation  could  safely  remove,  then  we  would  not 
only  not  be  found  to  attempt  the  extirpation,  but  we  would 
stand  guilty  of  a  high  offence  in  the  sight  of  both  God  and 
man,  if  we  should  rashly  make  the  effort.  But  the  original 
sin  of  introduction  rest  not  on  our  heads,  and  we  shall  soon 
see  that  all  those  dreadful  calamities  which  the  false  prophets 
of  our  day  are  pointing  to,  will  never,  in  all  probability,  occur. 
With  regard  to  the  assertion  that  slavery  is  against  the  spirit 
of  Christianity,  we  are  ready  to  admit  the  general  assertion, 
but  deny  most  positively,  that  there  is  any  thing  in  the  Old  or 
New  Testament,  which  would  go  to  show  that  slavery,  when 
once  introduced,  ought  at  all  events  to  be  abrogated,  or  that 
the  master  commits  any  offence  in  holding  slaves.  The  child- 
ren of  Israel  themselves  were  slaveholders,  and  were  not  con- 
demned for  it.  All  the  patriarchs  themselves  were  slaveholders  ; 
Abraham  had  more  than  three  hundred  ;  Isaac  had  a  "  great 


452  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON   SLAVERY. 

store  "  *  of  them  ;  and  even  the  patient  and  meek  Job  himself 
had  "  a  very  great  household"  When  the  children  of  Israel 
conquered  the  land  of  Canaan,  they  made  one  whole  tribe 
"  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,"  and  they  were  at  that 
very  time  under  the  special  guidance  of  Jehovah  ;  they  were 
permitted  expressly  to  purchase  slaves  of  the  heathen,  and  keep 
them  as  an  inheritance  for  their  posterity  ;  and  even  the  child- 
ren of  Israel  might  be  enslaved  for  six  years.  When  we  turn 
to  the  New  Testament,  we  find  not  one  single  passage  at  all 
calculated  to  disturb  the  conscience  of  an  honest  slaveholder. 
No  one  can  read  it  without  seeing  and  admiring  that  the 
meek  and  humble  Saviour  of  the  world  in  no  instance  meddled 
with  the  established  institutions  of  mankind ;  he  came  to  save 
a  fallen  world,  and  not  to  excite  the  black  passions  of  men, 
and  array  them  in  deadly  hostility  against  each  other.  From 
no  one  did  he  turn  away ;  his  plan  was  offered  alike  to  all — 
to  the  monarch  and  the  subject,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
master  and  the  slave.  He  was  born  in  the  Roman  world — 
a  world  in  which  the  most  galling  slavery  existed,  a  thousand 
times  more  cruel  than  the  slavery  in  our  own  'country ;  and 
yet  he  no  where  encourages  insurrection ;  he  no  where  fosters 
discontent;  but  exhorts  always  to  implicit  obedience  and 
fidelity.  What  a  rebuke  does  the  practice  of  the  Redeemer 
of  mankind  imply  upon  the  conduct  of  some  of  his  nominal 
disciples  of  the  day,  who  seek  to  destroy  the  contentment  of 
the  slaves,  to  rouse  their  most  deadly  passions,  to  break  up 
the  deep  foundations  of  society,  and  to  lead  on  to  a  night  of 
darkness  and  confusion  !  "  Let  every  man  [says  Paul]  abide 
in  the  same  calling  wherein  he  is  called.  Art  thou  called 
being  a  servant  ?  care  not  for  it ;  but  if  thou  mayest  be  made 

*  And  the  man  (Isaac)  waxed  great  and  -went  forward,  and  grew 
until  he  became  very  great ;  for  he  had  possession  of  flocks,  and  pos- 
session of  herds,  and  great  store  of  servants. — (Genesis  chap,  26.) 


,<|  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  453 

free,  use  it  rather." — (1  Corinth,  vii.  20,  21.)  Again:  "Let 
as  many  servants  as  are  under  the  yoke,  count  their  own  mas- 
ters worthy  of  all  honor,  that  the  name  of  God  and  his  doc- 
trines be  not  blasphemed ;  and  they  that  have  believing 
masters,  let  them  not  despise  them,  because  they  are  brethren, 
but  rather  do  them  service,  because  they  are  faithful  and  be- 
loved partakers  of  the  benefit.  These  things  teach  and  exhort." 
— (1  Tim.  vi.  1,  2.)  Servants  are  even  commanded  in  Scrip- 
ture to  be  faithful  and  obedient  to  unkind  masters.  "  Servants," 
(says  Peter.)  "  be  subject  to  your  masters  with  all  fear ;  r.ot 
only  to  the  good  and  gentle,  but  to  the  froward.  For  what 
glory  is  it  if  when  ye  shall  be  buffeted  for  your  faults  ye  take 
it  patiently ;  but  if  when  ye  do  well  and  suffer  for  it,  ye  take 
it  patiently,  this  is  acceptable  with  God." — (1  Peter,  ii.  18,  20.) 
These  and  many  other  passages  in  the  New  Testament,  most 
convincingly  prove,  that  slavery  in  the  Roman  world  was  no 
where  charged  as  a  fault  or  crime  upon  the  holder,  and  every 
where  is  the  most  implicit  obedience  enjoined.  * 

We  beg  leave,  before  quitting  this  topic,  to  address  a  few 
remarks  to  those  who  have  conscientious  scruples  about  the 
holding  of  slaves,  and  therefore  consider  themselves  under  an 
obligation  to  break  all  the  ties  of  friendship  and  kindred — dis- 
solve all  the  associations  of  happier  days,  to  flee  to  a  land 
where  this  evil  does  not  exist.  We  cannot  condemn  the  con- 
scientious actions  of  mankind,  but  we  must  be  permitted  to 
say,  that  if  the  assumption  even  of  these  pious  gentlemen  be 
correct,  we  do  consider  their  conduct  as  very  unphilosophical ; 
and  we  will  go  further  still :  we  look  upon  it  as  even  immoral 
upon  their  own  principles.  Let  us  admit  that  slavery  is  an 
evil,  and  what  then  ?  Why,  it  has  been  entailed  upon  us  by 
no  fault  of  ours,  and  must  we  shrink  from  the  charge  which 

*  See  Ephesians,  vi  5,  Titus  ii.  9,  10.  Philemon,  Colossians,  iii. 
22,  and  iv.  1. 


454  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

devolves  upon  ns,  and  throw  the  slave  in  consequence  into  the 
hands  of  those  who  have  no  scruples  of  conscience — those  who 
will  not  perhaps  treat  him  so  kindly  ?  No  !  this  is  not  philo- 
sophy, it  is  not  morality  ;  we  must  recollect  that  the  unprofit- 
able man  was  thrown  into  utter  darkness.  To  the  slaveholder 
has  truly  been  entrusted  the  five  talents.  Let  him  but  recol- 
lect the  exhortation  of  the  Apostle — "  Masters,  give  unto  your 
servants  that  which  is  just  and  equal;  knowing  that  ye  also 
have  a  master  in  heaven  ;"  and  in  the  final  day  he  shall  have 
nothing  on  this  score  with  which  his  conscience  need  be  smit- 
ten, and  he  may  expect  the  welcome  plaudit — "  Well  done 
thou  good  and  faithful  servant,  thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a 
few  things,  I  will  make  thee  ruler  over  many  things  ;  enter 
thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord."  Hallam,  in  his  History  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  says,  that  the  greatest  moral  evil  flowing  from 
monastic  establishments,  consisted  in  withdrawing  the  good  and 
religious  from  society,  and  leaving  the  remainder  unchecked 
and  unrestrained  in  the  pursuit  of  their  vicious  practices. 
Would  not  such  principles  as  those  just  mentioned  lead  to  a 
similar  result  ?  We  cannot,  therefore,  but  consider  them  as 
ivhining  and  sickly,  and  highly  unphilosophical  and  detrimen- 
tal to  society. 

2dly.  But  it  is  further  said  that  the  moral  effects  of  slavery 
are  of  the  most  deleterious  and  hurtful  kind  ;  and  as  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson has  given  the  sanction  of  his  great  name  to  this  charge, 
we  shall  proceed  to  examine  it  with  all  that  respectful  defer- 
ence to  which  every  sentiment  of  so  pure  and  philanthropic  a 
heart  is  justly  entitled. 

"  The  whole  commerce  between  master  and  slave,"  says  he, 
"  is  a  perpetual  exercise  of  the  most  boisterous  passions  ;  the 
most  unremitting  despotism  on  the  one  part,  and  degra- 
ding submission  on  the  other.  Our  children  see  this,  and 
learn  to  imitate  it,  for  mau  is  an  imitative  animal — this  quali- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON   SLAVERY.  455 

ty  is  the  germ  of  education  in  him.  From  his  cradle  to.  his 
grave,  he  is  learning  what  he  sees  others  do.  If  a  parent  had 
no  other  mptive,  either  in  his  own  philanthropy  or  self-love, 
for  restraining  the  intemperance  of  passion  towards  his  slave, 
it  should  always  be  a  sufficient  one  that  his  child  is  present. 
But  generally  it  is  not  sufficient.  The  parent  storms,  the  child 
looks  on,  catches  the  lineaments  of  wrath,  puts  on  the  same 
airs  in  the  circle  of  smaller  slaves,  gives  a  loose  to  his  worst 
of  passions,  and  thus  nursed,  educated,  and  daily  exercised  in 
the  worst  of  tyranny,  cannot  but  be  stamped  by  it  with  odious 
peculiarities."*  Now  we  boldly  assert  that  the  fact  does  not 
bear  Mr.  Jefferson  out  in  his  conclusions.  He  has  supposed 
the  master  in  a  continual  passion — in  the  constant  exercise  of 
the  most  odious  tyranny,  and  the  child,  a  creature  of  imita- 
tion, looking  on  and  learning.  But  is  not  this  master  some- 
times kind  and  indulgent  to  his  slaves  ?  Does  he  not  mete 
out  to  them,  for  faithful  service,  the  reward  of  his  cordial  ap- 
probation ?  Is  it  not  his  interest  to  do  it  ?  and  when  thus  act- 
ing humanely,  and  speaking  kindly,  where  is  the  child,  the 
creature  of  imitation,  that  he  does  not  look  on  and  learn  ?  We 
may  rest  assured,  in  this  intercourse  between  a  good  master 
and  his  servant,  more  good  than  evil  may  be  taught  the  child  ; 
ihe  exalted,  principles  of  morality  and  religion  may  thereby 
be  sometimes  indelibly  inculcated  upon  his  mind,  and  instead 
\»f  being  reared  a  selfish  contracted  being,  with  nought  but 
self  to  look  to — he  acquires  a  more  exalted  benevolence,  a 
greater  generosity  and  elevation  of  soul,  and  embraces  for  the 
sphere  of  his  generous  actions  a  much  wider  field.  Look  to 
the  slaveholding  population  of  our  country,  and  you  every 
Avhere  "find  them  characterized  by  noble  and  elevated  senti- 
ments, by  humane  and  virtuous  feelings.  We  do  not  find 
among  them  that  cold,  contracted,  calculating  selfishness,  which 

*  Jefferson's  Notes  on  Virginia. 


456  PROFESSOR  DEW  OX  SLAVErtY. 

withers  and  repels  every  thing  around  it,  and  lessens  or  de- 
stroys all  the  multiplied  enjoyments  of  social  intercourse.  Go 
into  our  national  councils,  and  ask  for  the  most  generous,  the 
most  disinterested,  the  most  conscientious,  and  the  least  un- 
just and  oppressive  in  their  principles,  and  see  whether  the 
slaveholder  will  be  past  by  in  the  selection.  Edwards  says 
that  slavery  in  the  West  Indies  seems  to  awaken  the  laudable 
propensities  of  our  nature,  such  as,  "frankness,  sociability,  be- 
nevolence and  generosity.  In  no  part  of  the  globe  is  the  vir- 
tue of  hospitality  more  prevalent  than  in  the  British  sugar 
islands.  The  gates  of  the  planter  are  always  open  to  the  re- 
ception of  his  guests — to  be  a  stranger  is  of  itself  a  sufficient 
introduction." 

Is  it  not  a  fact,  known  to  every  man  in  the  south,  that  the 
most  cruel  master  are  those  who  have  been  unaccustomed  to 
slavery.  It  is  well  known  that  northern  gentlemen  who  mar- 
ry southern  heiresses,  are  much  severer  masters  than  south- 
ern gentlemen.*  And  yet,  if  Mr.  Jefferson's  reasoning  were 
correct,  they  ought  to  be  milder :  in  fact,  it  follows  from  his 
reasoning,  that  the  authority  which  the  father  is  called  on  to 
exercise  over  his  children,  must  be  seriously  detrimental ;  and 
yet  we  know  that  this  is  not  the  case  ;  that  on  the  contrary, 
there  is  nothing  which  so  much  humanizes  and  softens  the 
heart,  as  this  very  authority  ;  and  there  are  none,  even  among 
those  who  have  no  children  themselves,  so  disposed  to  pardon 
the  follies  and  indiscretion  of  youth,  as  those  who  have  seen 
most  of  them,  and  suffered  greatest  annoyance.  There  may 
be  many  cruel  masters,  and  there  are, unkind  and  cruel  fathers 
too;  but  both  the  one  and  the  other  make  all  those  around 

*  A  similar  remark  is  made  by  Ramsay,  and  confirmed  by  Bryant 
Edwards,  in  regard,  to  the  West  Indies.  Adventurers  from  Europe 
are  universally  more  cruel  and  morose  towards  the  slaves,  than  the 
Creole  or  native  West  Indian.  (Hist,  of  W.  I.  Book  4,  Chap.  I.) 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  45*7 

them  shudder  with  horror.  We  are  disposed  to  think  that 
their  example  in  society  tends  rather  to  strengthen  than  weak- 
en the  principle  of  benevolence  and  humanity. 

Let  us  now  look  a  moment  to  the  slave,  and  contemplate 
his  position.  Mr.  Jefferson  has  described  him  as  hating,  rather 
than  loving  his  master,  and  as  losing,  too,  all  that  amor  patrice 
which  characterizes  the  true  patriot.  We  assert  again,  that 
Mr.  Jefferson  is  not  borne  out  by  the  fact.  We  are  well  con- 
vinced that  there  is  nothing  but  the  mere  relations  of  hus- 
band and  wife,  parent  and  child,  brother  and  sister,  which 
produce  a  closer  tie,  than  the  relation  of  master  and  servant.* 
We  have  no  hesitation  in  affirming,  that  throughout  the  whole 
slaveholding  country,  the  slaves  of  a  good  master  are  his 
warmest,  most  constant,  and  most  devoted  friends  ;  they  have 
been  accustomed  to  look  up  to  him  as  their  supporter,  director 
and  defender.  Every  one  acquainted  with  southern  slaves, 
knows  that  the  slave  rejoices  in  the  elevation  and  prosperity 
of  his  master ;  and  the  heart  of  no  one  is  more  gladdened  at 
the  successful  debut  of  young  master  or  miss  on  the  great 
theatre  of  the  world,  than  that  of  either  the  young  slave  who 
has  grown  up  with  them,  and  shared  in  all  their  sports,  and 
even  partaken  of  all  their  delicacies — or  the  aged  one  who  has 
looked  on  and  watched  them  from  birth  to  manhood,  with  the 
kindest  and  most  affectionate  solicitude,  and  has  ever  met  from 
them  all  the  kind  treatment  and  generous  sympathies  of  feel- 
ing, tender  hearts.  Judge  Smith,  in  his  able  speech  on  Foote's 
.  Resolutions,  in  the  Senate,  said,  in  an  emergency,  he  would 
rely  upon  his  own  slaves  for  his  defence — he  would  put  arms  into 
their  hands,  and  he  had  no  doubt  they  would  defend  him 
faithfully.  In  the  late  Southampton  insurrection,  \ve  know 

*  There  are  hundreds  of  slaves  in  the  southern  country  who  will  de- 
sert parents,  wives  or  husbands,  brothers  and  sisters,  to  follow  a  kind 
master — so  strong  is  the  tie  of  master  and  slave. 
39 


458  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

that  many  actually  convened  their  slaves  and  armed  them  for 
defence,  although  slaves  were  here  the  cause  of  the  evil  which 
•was  to  be  repelled.  "We  have  often  heard  slaveholders  affirm 
that  they  would  sooner  rely  upon  their  slaves'  fidelity  and  at- 
tachment in  the  hour  of  danger  and  severe  trial,  than  on  any 
other  equal  number  of  individuals  ;  and  we  all  know,  that  the 
son  or  daughter,  who  has  been  long  absent  from  the  parental 
roof,  on  returning  to  the  scenes  of  infancy  never  fails  to  be 
greeted  with  the  kindest  welcome  and  the  most  sincere  and 
heartfelt  congratulations  from  those  slaves  among  whom  he 
has  been  reared  to  manhood. 

Gilbert  Stuart,  in  his  History  of  Society,  says  that  the  time 
when  the  vassals  of  the  feudal  ages  was  most  faithful,  most 
obedient,  and  most  interested  in  the  welfare  of  his  master,  was 
precisely  when  his  dependence  was  most  complete,  and  when, 
consequently,  he  relied  upon  his  lord  for  everything.  When 
the  feudal  tenure  was  gradually  changing,  and  the  law  was 
interposing  between  landlord  and  tenant,  the  close  tie  between 
them  began  to  dissolve,  and  with  it,  the  kindness  on  one  side, 
and  the  affection  and  gratitude  on  the  other,  waned  and  van- 
ished. From  all  this,  we  are  forced  to  draw  one  important 
inference — that  it  is  dangerous  to  the  happiness  and  well-being 
of  the  slave,  for  either  the  imprudent  philanthropist  to  attempt 
to  interpose  too  often,  or  the  rash  legislator  to  obtrude  his  re- 
gulating edicts,  between  master  and  slave.  They  only  serve 
to  render  the  slave  more  intractable  and  unhappy,  and  the 
master  more  cruel  and  unrelenting.  The  British  West  India 
Islands  form  at  this  momenta  most  striking  illustration  of  this 
remark  ;  the  law  has  interposed  between  master  and  servant, 
and  the  slave  has  been  made  idle  and  insolent,  and  conse- 
quently worthless  ;  a  vague  and  irrational  idea  of  liberty  has 
been  infused  into  his  mind  ;  he  has  become  restless  and  un- 
happy ;  and  the  planters  are  deserting  the  islands,  because 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  459 

the  very  law  itself  is  corrupting  and  ruining  the  slave.  The 
price  of  slaves,  it  is  said,  since  the  passage  of  those  laws,  has 
fallen  fifty  per  cent,  and  the  rapid  declension  of  the  number 
of  slaves,  proves  that  their  condition  has  been  greatly  injured, 
instead  of  benefited.  This  instance  is  fraught  with  deep  in- 
struction to  the  legislator,  and  should  make  him  pause.  And 
we  call  upon  the  reverend  clergy,  whose  examples  should  be 
pure,  and  whose  precepts  should  be  fraught  with  wisdom  and 
prudence,  to  beware,  lest  in  their  zeal  for  the  black,  they  suf- 
fer too  much  of  the  passion  and  prejudice  of  the  human  heart 
to  meddle  with  those  pure  principles  by  which  they  should  be 
governed.  Let  them  beware  of  "  what  spirit  they  are  of." 
"•  No  sound,"  says  Burke,  "  ought  to  be  heard  in  the  church, 
but  the  healing  voice  of  Christian  charity.  Those  who  quit 
their  proper  character,  to  assume  what  does  not  belong  to  them, 
are  for  the  most  part  ignorant  of  the  character  they  assume, 
and  of  the  character  they  leave  off.  Wholly  unacquainted 
with  the  world  in  which  they  are  so  fond  of  meddling,  and  in- 
experienced in  all  its  affairs,  on  which  they  pronounce  with  so 
much  confidence,  they  have  nothing  of  politics  but  the  pas- 
sions they  excite.  Surely  the  church  is  a  place  where  one 
day's  truce  ought  to  be  allowed  to  the  dissensions  and  animosi- 
ties of  mankind." 

In  the  debate  in  the  Virginia  Legislature,  no  speaker  insinu- 
ated even,  we  believe,  that  the  slaves  in  Virginia  were  not 
treated  kindly ;  and  all,  too,  agree  that  they  were  most  abun- 
dantly fed  ;  and  we  have  no  doubt  but  that  they  form  the  hap- 
piest portion  of  our  society.  A  merrier  being  does  not  exist  on. 
the  face  of  the  globe,  than  the  negro  slave  of  the  U.  States. 
Even  Captain  Hall  himself,  with  his  thick  "  crust  of  preju- 
dice," is  obliged  to  allow  that  they  are  happy  and  contented, 
and  the  master  much  less  cruel  than  is  generally  imagined. 
Why,  then,  since  the  slave  is  happy,  and  happiness  is  the  great 


460  PROFESSOR  DEW  OX  SLAVERY. 

object  of  all  animated  creation,  should  we  endeavor  to  disturb 
his  contentment  by  infusing  into  his  mind  a  vain  and  indefi- 
nite desire  for  liberty — a  something  which  he  cannot  compre- 
hend, and  which  must  inevitably  dry  up  the  very  sources  of 
his  happiness. 

The  fact  is  that  all  of  us,  and  the  great  author  of  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  is  like  us  in  this  respect,  are  too  prone 
to  judge  of  the  happiness  of  others  by  ourselves — we  make 
self  the  standard,  and  endeavor  to  draw  down  every  one  to 
its  dimensions — not  recollecting  that  the  benevolence  of  the 
Omnipotent  has  made  the  mind  of  man  pliant  and  susceptible 
of  happiness  in  almost  every  situation  and  employment.  We 
might  rather  die  than  be  the  obscure  slave  that  waits  at  our 
back — our  education  and  our  habits  generate  an  ambition  that 
makes  us  aspire  at  something  loftier — and  disposes  us  to  look 
tipon  the  slave  as  unsusceptible  of  happiness  in  his  humble 
sphere,  when  he  may  indeed  be  much  happier  than  we  are, 
and  have  his  ambition  too  ;  but  his  ambition  is  to  excel  all  his 
other  slaves  in  the  performance  of  his  servile  duties — to  please 
and  to  gratify  his  master — and  to  command  the  praise  of  all 
who  witness  his  exertions.  Let  the  wily  philanthropist  but 
come  and  whisper  into  the  ears  of  such  a  slave  that  his  situa- 
tion is  degrading  and  his  lot  a  miserable  one — let  him  but 
light  up  the  dungeon  in  which  he  persuades  the  slave  that  he 
is  caged — and  that  moment,  like  the  serpent  that  entered  the 
garden  of  Eden,  he  destroys  his  happiness  and  his  usefulness. 
We  cannot,  therefore,  agree  with  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  the  opinion 
that  slavery  makes  the  unfeeling  tyrant  and  ungrateful  depen- 
dant ;  and  in  regard  to  Virginia  especially,  we  are  almost  dis- 
posed, judging  from  the  official  returns  of  crimes  and  convic- 
tions, to  assert,  with  a  statesman  who  has  descended  to  his 
tomb,  (Mr.  Giles,)  "  that  the  whole  population  of  Virginia, 
consisting  of  three  castes — of  free  white,  free  colored,  and  slavo 


PROFESSOR  DEW  Off  SLAVERY.  401 

colored  population,  is  the  soundest  and  most  moral  of  any 
other,  according  to  numbers,  in  the  whole  world,  as  far  as  is 
known  to  me." 

3dly.  It  has  been  contended  that  slavery  is  unfavorable  to  a 
republican  spirit ;  but  the  whole  history  of  the  world  proves 
that  this  is  far  from  being  the  case.  In  the  ancient  republics 
of  Greece  and  Rome,  where  the  spirit  of  liberty  glowed  with 
most  intensity,  the  skives  were  more  numerous  than  the  free- 
men. Aristotle,  and  the  great  men  of  antiquity,  believed  sla- 
very necessary  to  keep  alive  the  spirit  of  freedom.  In  Sparta, 
the  freemen  were  even  forbidden  to  perform  the  offices  of 
slaves,  lest  he  might  lose  the  spirit  of  independence.  In  mo- 
dern times,  too,  liberty  has  always  been  more  ardently  desired 
by  slaveholding communities.  "  Such  "  says  Burke,  u  were  our 
Gothic  ancestors  ;  such,  in  our  days,  were  the  Poles  ;  and  such 
•will  be  all  masters  of  slaves  who  are  not  slaves  themselves." 
"These  people  of  the  southern  (American)  colonies  are  much 
more  strongly,  and  with  a  higher  and  more  stubborn  spirit,  at- 
tached to  liberty,  than  those  of  the  northward."  And  from 
the  time  of  Burke  down  to  the  present  day,  the  Southern 
States  have  always  borne  the  same  honorable  distinction. 
Burke  says,  "  it  is  because  freedom  is  to  them  not  only  an  en- 
joyment, but  a  kind  of  rank  and  privilege."  Another,  and 
j  erhaps  more  efficient  cause  of  this,  is  the  perfect  spirit  of 
equality  so  prevalent  among  the  whites  of  all  the  slaveholding 
States.  Jack  Cade,  the  English  reformer,  wished  all  mankind  to 
be  brought  to  one  common  level.  We  believe  slavery  in  the  U. 
States  has  accomplished  this,  in  regard  to  the  whites,  as  near- 
ly as  can  be  expected  or  even  desired  in  this  world.  The  me- 
nial and  low  offices  being  all  performed  by  the  blacks,  there  is 
at  once  taken  away  the  greatest  cause  of  distinction  and  sepa- 
ration of  the  ranks  of  society.  The  man  to  the  north  will  not 
shake  hands  familiarly  with  his  servant,  and  converse,  and 
39* 


462  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

laugh  and  dine  with  him,  no  matter  how  honest  and  respecta- 
ble he  may  be.  But  go  to  the  south,  and  you  will  find  that 
no  white  man  feels  such  inferiority  of  rank  as  to  be  unworthy 
of  association  with  those  around  him.  Color  alone  is  here 
the  badge  of  distinction,  the  true  mark  of  aristocracy,  and  all 
who  are  white  are  equal  in  spite  of  the  variety  of  occupation. 
The  same  thinor  is  observed  in  the  West  Indies.  "Of  the 

O 

character  common  to  the  white  resident  of  the  West  Indies,  i| 
appears  to  me,"  says  Edwards,  "that  the  leading  feature  is  an 
independent  spirit,  and  a  display  of  conscious  equality  through- 
out all  ranks  and  conditions.  The  poorest  white  person  seems 
to  consider  himself  nearly  on  a  level  with  the  richest;  and  em- 
boldened by  this  idea,  approaches  his  employer  with  extended 
hand,  and  a  freedom  which,  in  the  countries  of  Europe,  is  sel- 
dom displayed  by  men  in  the  lower  orders  of  life  towards  their 
superiors."  And  it  is  this  spirit  of  equality  which  is  both  tiie 
generator  and  preserver  of  the  genuine  spirit  of  liberty. 

4thly.  Insecurity  of  the  whites,  arising  from  plots,  insur- 
rections, <&c.,  among  the  blacks.  This  is  the  evil,  after  all,  let 
us  say  what  we  will,  which  really  operates  most  powerfully 
upon  the  schemers  and  emancipating  philanthropists  of  those 
sections  where  slaves  constitute  the  principal  property.  Now, 
if  we  have  shown,  as  we  trust  we  have,  that  the  scheme  of 
deportation  is  utterly  impracticable,  and  that  emancipation, 
with  permission  to  remain,  will  produce  all  these  horrors  in  still 
greater  degree,  it  follows  that  this  evil  of  slavery,  allowing  it 
to  exist  in  all  its  latitude,  would  be  no  argument  for  legisla- 
tive action,  and  therefore  we  might  w.ell  rest  contented  with 
this  issue  ;  but  as  we  are  anxious  to  exhibit  this  whole  subject  in 
its  true  bearings,  and  as  we  do  believe  that  this  evil  has  been 
most  strangely  and  causelessly  exaggerated,  we  have  deter- 
mined to  examine  it  a  moment,  and  point  out  its  true  extent. 
It  seems  to  us  that  those  who  insist  most  upon  it,  commit  the 


PROFESSOR  DE\V  OX  SLAVERY.  463 

enormous  error  of  looking  upon  every  slave  in  the  whole  slave- 
holding  country  as  actuated  by  the  most  deadly  enmity  to 
the  whites,  and  possessing  all  that  reckless,  fiendish  temper, 
which  would  lead  him  to  murder  and  assassinate  the  moment 
the  opportunity  occurs.  This  is  far  from  being  true  ;  the 
slave,  as  we  have  already  said,  generally  loves  the  master  and 
his  family  ;*  and  few  indeed  there  are,  who  can  coldly  plot 
the  murder  of  men,  women  and  children  ;  and  if  they  do,  there 
are  fewer  still  who  can  have  the  villany  to  execute.  We  can 
sit  down  and  imagine  that  all  the  negroes  in  the  south  have 
conspired  to  rise  on  a  certayi  night,  and  murder  all  the  whites 
in  their  respective  families ;  we  may  suppose  the  secret  to  be 
kept,  and  that  they  have  the  physical  power  to  exterminate, 
and  yet  we  may  say  the  whole  is  morally  impossible.  No  in- 
surrection of  this  kind  can  ever  occur  where  the  blacks  are  as 
much  civilized  as  they  are  in  the  United  States.  Savages  and 
Koromantyn  slaves  can  commit  such  deeds,  because  their 
whole  life  and  education  have  prepared  them  ;  and  they  glory 
in  the  achievement;  but  the  negro  of  the  United  States  has 
imbibed  the  principles,  the  sentiments,  and  feelings  of  the 
white  ;  in  one  word,  he  is  civilized — at  least,  comparatively  ; 
his  whole  education  and  course  of  life  are  at  war  with  such 
fell  deeds.  Nothing,  then,  but  the  most  subtle  and  poisonous 
principles,  sedulously  infused  into  his  mind,  can  break  his  al- 
legiance, and  transform  him  into  the  midnight  murderer.  Any 
man  who  will  attend  to  the  history  of  the  Southampton  mas- 
sacre, must  at  once  see,  that  the  cause  of  even  the  partial  suc- 
cess of  the  insurrectionists,  was  the  very  circumstance  that 
there  was  no  extensive  plot,  and  that  Xat,  a  demented  fanatic, 
was  under  the  impression  that  heaven  had  enjoined  him  to 

*  We  scarcely  know  a  single  family,  in  which  the  slaves,  especially 
the  domestic?,  do  not  manifest  the  most  unfeigned  grief  at  the  deaths 
wliich  occur  among  the  whites. 


464  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

liberate  the  blacks,  and  had  made  its  manifestations  by  loud 
noises  in  the  air,  an  ec'ipse,  and  by  the  greenness  of  the  sun. 
It  was  these  signs  which  determined  him,  and  ignorance  and 
superstition,  together  with  implicit  confidence  in  Nat,  djter- 
mine.d  a  few  others,  and  thus  the  bloody  work  began.  So 
fearfully  and  reluctantly  did  they  proceed  to  the  execution,^ 
that  we  have  no  doubt  that  if  Travis,  the  first  attacked,  could 
have  waked  whilst  they  were  getting  into  his  house",  or  could 
have  shot  down  Nat  or  Bill,  the  rest  would  have  fled,  and  the 
affair  would  have  terminated  in  limine. 

We  have  read  with  great  attention  the  history  of  the  insur- 
rections in  St.  Domingo,  and  have  no  hesitation  in  affirming, 
that  to  the  reflecting  mind,  that  whole  history  affords  the  most 
complete  evidence  of  the  difficulty  and  almost  impossibility  of 
succeeding  in  these  plots,  even  under  the  most  favorable  cir- 
cumstances. It  would  almost  have  been  a  moral  miracle,  if 
that  revolution  had  not  succeeded.  The  French  revolution 
had  kindled^a  blaze  throughout  the  world.  The  society  of  the 
Amis  des  Noirs,  (the  friends  of  the  blacks,)  in  Paris,  had  edu- 
cated and  disciplined  many  of  the  mulattoes,  who  were  almost 
as  numerous  as  the  whites  in  the  island.  The  National  Assem- 
bly, in  its  mad  career,  declared  these  mulattoes  to  be  equal  in 
all  respects  to  the  whites,  and  gave  them  the  same  privileges 
and  immunities  as  the  whites.  During  the  ten  years,  too,  im- 
mediately preceding  the  revolution,  more  than  200,000  negroes 
were  imported  into  the  island  from  Africa.  It  is  a  well  known 
fact,  that  newly  imported  negroes  are  always  greatly  more 
dangerous  than  those  born  among  us  ;  .and  of  those  importa- 
tions a  very  large  proportion  consisted  of  Koromantyn  slaves, 
from  the  Gold  Coast,  who  have  all  the  savage  ferocity  of  the 
North  American  Indian.*  And  lastly,  the  whites  themselves, 

*  It  was  the  Kororaantyns  who  brought  about  the  insurrection  in  Ja- 
maica, in  1760.     They  are  a  very  hardy  race,  and  the  Dutch,  who  are 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  405 

disunited  and  strangely  inharmonious,  would  nevertheless 
have  suppressed  the  insurrections,  although  the  blacks  and 
mulattoes  were  nearly  fifteen-fold  their  numbers,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  constant  and  too  fatal  interference  of  France. 
The  great  sin  of  that  revolution  rests  on  the  National  Assem- 
bly, and  should  be  an  awful  warning  to  every  legislature  to 
beware  of  too  much  tampering  with  so  delicate  and  difficult  a 
subject,  as  an  alteration  of  the  fundamental  relations  of  society. 
But  there  is  another  cause  which  will  render  the  success  of 
the  blacks  forever  impossible  in  the  South,  as  long  as  slavery 
exists.  It  is,  that  in  modern  times,  especially,  wealth  and 
talent  must  ever  rule  over  mere  physical  force.  During  the 
feudal  ages,  the  vassals  never  made  a  settled  concerted  at- 
tempt to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  the  lord  or  landed  proprietor, 
and  the  true  reason  was,  they  had  neither  property  nor  talent, 
and  consequently  the  power,  under  these  circumstances,  could 
be  placed  no  where  else  than  in  the  hands  of  the  lords  ;  but 
so  soon  as  the  tiers  etat  arose,  with  commerce  and  manufac- 
tures, there  was  something  to  struggle  for,  and  le  crise  des 
revolutions,  (the.  crisis  of  revolutions,)  was  the  consequence. 
No  connected,  persevering,  and  well  concerted  movement, 
ever  takes  place,  in  modern  times,  unless  for  the  sake  of  pro- 
perty. Now,  the  property,  talent,  concert,  and  we  may  add, 
habit,  are  all  with  the  whites,  and  render  their  continued  su- 
periority^ absolutely  certain,  if  they  are  not  meddled  with,  no 
matter  what  may  be  the  disproportion  of  numbers.  We  look 
upon  these  insurrections  in  the  same  light  that  .we  do  the 
murders  and  robberies  which  occur  in  society,  and  in  a  slave- 

a  calculating,  money-making  people,  and  withal  the  most  cruel  masters 
in  the  world,  have  generally  preferred  these  slaves,  because  they  might 
be  forced  to  do  most  work ;  but  the  consequence  of  their  avarice  has 
been  that  they  have  been  more  cursed  with  insurrections  than  any  other 
people  in  the  West  Indies. 


. 

466  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

holding  State, — they  are  a  sort  of  substitute  for  the  latter; 
the  robbers  and  murderers  in  what  are  called  free  States,  are 
generally  the  poor  and  needy,  who  rob  for  money  ;  negro 
slaves  rarely  murder  or  rob  for  this  purpose ;  they  have  no 
inducement  to  do  it — the  fact  is,  the  whole  capital  of  the 
South-  is  pledged  for  their  maintenance.  The  present  Chief 
Magistrate  of  Virginia  has  informed  us  that  he  has  never 
known  of  but  one  single  case  in  Virginia  where  negroes  mur- 
^  dered  for  the  sake  of  money.  Now,  there  is  no  doubt,  but 
that  the  common  robberies  and  murders  for  money,  take  off, 
in  the  aggregate,  more  men,  and  destroy  more  property,  than 
insurrections  among  the  slaves  ;  the  former  are  the  result  of 
fixed  causes  eternally  at  work,  the  latter  of  occasional  causes 
•which  are  rarely,  very  rarely,  in  action.  Accordingly,  if  we 
should  look  to  the  whole  of  our  southern  population,  and  com- 
pare the  average  number  of  deaths,  by  the  hands  of  assassins, 
with  the  numbers  elsewhere,  we  would  be  astonished  to  find 
them  perhaps  as  few,  or  fewer,  than  in  any  other  population 
of  equal  amount  on  the  globe.  In  the  city  of  London  there 
is,  upon  an  average,  a  murder,  or  a  house-breaking  and  rob- 
bery, every  night  in  the  year,  which  is  greater  than  the  amount 
of  deaths  by  murders,  insurrections,  &c.,  in  our  whole  south- 
ern country  ;  and  yet  the  inhabitant  of  London  walks  the 
streets,  and  sleeps  in  perfect  confidence,  and  why  should  not 
we,  who  are  in  fact  in  much  less  danger?*  These  calamities 
in  London  very  properly  give  rise  to  the  establishment  of  a 

*  We  wish  that  accurate  accounts  could  be  published  of  all  the  deaths 
which  had  occurred  from  insurrections  in  the  United  States,  West  In- 
dies, and  South  America,  since  the  establishment  of  slavery  ;  and  that 
these  could  be  compared  to  the  whole  population  that  have  lived  since 
that  epoch,  and  the  number  of  deaths  which  occur  in  other  equal 
amounts  of  population  from  popular  sedition,  robberies,  &c.,  and  we 
would  be  astonished  to  see  what  little  cause  we  have  for  the  slightest 
apprehension  on  this  score. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  46*7 

police,  and  the  adoption  of  precautionary  measures ;  and  so 
they  should  in  our  country,  and  every  where  eke.  And  if 
the  Virginia  Legislature  had  turned  its  attention  more  to  this 
subject  during  its  last  session,  we  think,  with  all  due  defer- 
ence, it  would  have  redounded  much  more  to  the  advantage 
of  the  State  than  the  intemperate  discussion  which  was  gotten 
up. 

But  it  is  agreed  on  almost  all  hands,  that  the  danger  of 
insurrection  now  is  not  very  great ;  but  a  time  must  arrive,  it 
is  supposed  by  many,  when  the  dangers  will  infinitely  in- 
crease, and  either  the  one  or  the  other  race  must  necessarily 
be  exterminated.  "  I  do  believe,"  said  one  in  the  Virginia 
Legislature,  "  and  such  must  be  the  judgment  of  every  re- 
flecting man,  that  unless  something  is  done  in  time  to  obvi- 
ate it,  the  day  must  arrive  when  scenes  of  inconceivable  horror 
must  inevitably  occur,  and  one  of  these  two  races  of  human 
beings  will  have  their  throats  cut  by  the  other."  Another 
gentleman  anticipates  the  dark  day  when  a  negro  Legislature 
would  be  in  session  in  the  capital  of  the  Old  Dominion  !  Mr. 
Clay,  too,  seems  to  be  full  of  gloomy  anticipations  of  the  future. 
In  his  colonization  speech  of  1830,  he  says,  "Already  the 
slaves  may  be  estimated  at  two  millions,  and  the  free  popula- 
tion at  ten  ;  the  former  being  in  the  proportion  of  one  to  five 
of  the  latter.  Their  respective  numbers  will  probably  double 
in  periods  of  thirty-three.  In  the  year  1863,  the  number  of 
the  whites  will  probably  be  twenty,  and  of  the  blacks  four 
millions.  In  1896,  forty  and  eight;  and  in  the  year  1929, 
about  a  century,  eighty  and  sixteen  millions.  What  mind  is 
sufficiently  extensive  in  its  reach — what  nerve  sufficiently 
strong — to  contemplate  this  vast  and  progressive  augmenta- 
tion, without  an  awful  foreboding  of  the  tremendous  conse- 
quences." If  these  anticipations  are  true,  then  may  we  in 
despair  sit  quietly  down  by  the  waters  of  Babylon,  and  weep 


468  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

over  our  lot,  for  we  can  never  remove  the  blacks — "  Hceret 
luteri'lelhalis  arundo" 

But  we  have  none  of  these  awful  forebodings.  We  do  not 
look  to  the  time  when  the  throats  of  one  race  must  be  cut  by 
the  other ;  on  the  contrary,  we  have  no  hesitation  in  affirm- 
ing, and  we  think  we  can  prove  it,  too;  that  in  1929,  taking 
Mr.  Clay's  own  statistics,  we  shall  be  much  more  secure  from 
plots  and  insurrections  than  we  are  at  this  moment.  It  is  an 
undeniable  fact  that,  in  the  increase  of  population,  the  power 
and  security  of  the  dominant  party  always  increases  much 
more  than  in  proportion  to  the  relative  augmentation  of  their 
numbers.  One  hundred  men  can  much  more  easily  keep  an 
equal  number  in  subjection  than  fifty,  and  a  million  would 
rule  a  million  more  certainly  and  securely  than  any  lesser 
number.  The  dominant  can  only  be  overturned  by  concert 
and  harmony  among  the  subject  party,  and  the  greater  the 
relative  numbers  on  both  sides,  the  more  impossible  does  this 
concert  on  the  part  of  the  subjected  become.  A  police,  too, 
of  the  same  relative  numbers,  is  much  more  efficient  amid  a 
numerous  population  than  a  sparse  -one.  We  will  illustrate 
by  example,  which  cannot  fail  to  strike  even  the  most  scepti- 
cal. Mr.  Gibbon  supposes  that  the  hundredth  man  in  any 
community  is  as  much  as  the  people  can  afford  to  keep  in  pay 
for  the  purposes  of  a  police.  Now  suppose  the  community  be 
only  one  hundred,  then  one  man  alone  is  the  police.  Is  it 
not  evident  that  the  ninety-nine  will  be  able  at  any  moment 
to  destroy  him,  and  throw  off  all  restraint  2  Suppose  the 
community  one  thousand,  then  ten  will  form  the  police,  which 
would  have  rather  a  better  chance  of  keeping  up  order  among 
the  nine  hundred  and  ninety,  than  the  one  in  the  one  hun- 
dred— but  still  this  would  be  insufficient.  Let  your  commu- 
nity swell  to  one  million,  and  ten  thousand  would  then  form 
the  police,  and  ten  thousand  troops  will  strike  terror  in  any 


PROFESSOR  DEW  OX  SLAVERY.  469 

city  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  Lord  Wellington  lately  assert- 
ed in  the  British  Parliament,  that  Paris,  containing  a  popula- 
tion of  a  million  of  souls,  (the  most  boisterous  and  ungoverna- 
ble,) never  required,  before  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe,  more 
than  forty-five  hundred  troops  to  keep  it  in  the  most  perfect 
subjection.  It  is  this  very  principle  which  explains  the  fact 
so  frequently  noticed,  that  revolutions  are  effected  much  more 
readily  in  small  states  than  in  large  ones.  The  little  repub- 
lics of  Greece  underwent  revolution  almost  every  month  ;.the 
dominant  party  was  never  safe  for  a  moment.  The  little 
states  of  modern  Italy  have  undergone  more  changes  and 
revolutions  than  all  the  rest  of  Europe  together,  and  if  foreign 
influence  were  withdrawn,  almost  every  ship  from  Europe, 
even  now,  would  bring  the  news  of  some  new  revolution  in 
those  states.  If  the  standing  army  will  remain  firm  to  the 
government,  a  successful  revolution  in  most  large  empires,  as 
France,  Germany,  and  Russia,  is  almost  impossible.  The  two 
revolutions  in  France  have  been  successful,  in  consequence  of 
the  disaffection  of  the  troops,  who  have  joined  the  popular 
party. 

Let  us  apply  these  principles  to  our  own  ease  ;  and  for  the 
sake  of  simplicity,  we  will  take  a  county  of  a  mixed  popula- 
tion of  twenty  thousand,  viz ,  blacks  ten  thousand,  and  whites 
as  many : — the  patrol  which  they  can  keep  out,  would,  ac- 
cording to  our  rule,  be  two  hundred ;  double  both  sides,  and 
the  patrol  would  be  four  hundred  ;  quadruple,,  and  it  would 
be  eight  hundred — now,  a  patrol  of  eight  hundred  .would  be 
much  more  efficient  than  the  two  hundred,  though  they  were, 
relatively  to  the  numbers  kept  in  order,  exactly  the  same ;  and 
the  same  principle  is  applicable  to  the  progress  of  population 
in  the  whole  slaveholding  country.  In  1929,  our  police  would 
be  much  more  efficient  than  now,  if  the  two  castes  preserve 
anything  like  the  same  relative  numbers.  We  believe  it 
40 


470  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

would  be  better  for  the  whites  that  the  negro  population 
should  double,  if  they  added  only  one-half  more  to  their  num- 
bers, than  that  they  should  remain  stationary  on  both  sides. 
Hence,  an  insuperable  objection  to  all  these  deporting  schemes 
— they  cannot  diminish  the  relative  proportion  of  the  blacks 
to  the  whites,  but  on  the  contrary  increase  it,  while  they 
check  the  augmentation  of  the  population  as  a  whole,  and 
consequently  lessen  the  security  of  the  dominant  party.  We 
do  not  fear  the  increa>c  of  the  blacks,  for  that  very  increase 
adds  to  the  wealth  of  society,  and  enables  it  to  keep  up  the 
police.  This  is  the  true  secret  of  the  security  of  the  West  In- 
dies and  Brazil.  In  Jamaica,  the  blacks  are  eight-fold  the 
whites  ;  throughout  the  extensive  empire  of  Brazil  they  are  three 
to  one.  Political  prophets  have  been  prophesying  for  tifty 
years  past,  that  the  day  would  speedily  arrive,  when  all  the 
West  Indies  would  be  in  possession  of  the  negroes  ;  and  the 
danger  is  no  greater  now  than  it  was  at  the  commencement. 
We  sincerely  believe  the  blacks  never  will  get  possession,  un- 
less through  the  mad  interference  of  the  mother  countries,  and 
even  then  we  are  doubtful  whether  they  can  conquer  the 
whites.  Now,  we  have  nowhere  in  the  United  States  the 
immense  disproportion  between  the  two  races  observed  in 
Brazil  and  the  Wot  Indies,  and  we  are  not  like  to  have  it  in 
all  time  to  come.  We  have  no  data,  therefore,  upon  which 
to  anticipate  that  dreadful  crisis,  which  so  torments  the  ima- 
gination of  some.  The  little  islands  of  the  West  Indies,  if 
such  crisis  were  fated  frequently  to  arrive,  ought  to  exhibit 
one  continued  series  of  massacres  and  insurrections,  for  their 
blacks  are  relatively  much  more  numerous  than  with  us,  and 
a  small  extent  of  territory  is,  upon  the  principle  just  explain- 
ed, much  more  favorable  to  successful  revolution  than  a  lanro 
one.  Are  we  not,  then, .most  unphilosophically  and  needless- 
3y  tormenting  ourselves  with  the  idea  of  insurrection — scxing 


PROFESSOR  DEW  OK  SLAVERY.  47l 

that  the  West  India  Islands,  even 'so  much  worse  off  than 
-ourselves,  arc,  nevertheless,  but  raivly  disturbed?  Lt  is  well 
known  that  where  the  range  is  sufficiently  extensive,  and  the 
elements  sufficiently  numerous,  the  calculation  of  chances  may 
bo  reduced  to  almost  a  mathematical  certainty;  thus,  al- 
though you  cannot  say  what  will  be  the  profit  or  loss  of  ,1 
particular  gambling  house  in  Paris  on  any  one  night,  yet  you 
may,  with  great  accuracy,  calculate  upon  the  profits  for  a 
whole  year,  and  with  still  greater  accuracy,  for  any  longer 
period,  as  ten,  twenty,  or  one  hundred  years.  Upon  the  same 
principle  we  speculate  with  much  greater  certainty  upon 
masses  of  individuals,  than  upon  single  persons.  Hence,  bills 
of  mortality,  registers  of  births,  marriages,  crimes,  &c.,  become 
very  important  statistics,  when  calculated  upon  large  masses 
'of  population,  although  they  prove  nothing  in  families  or 
among  individuals.  lYoceeding  upon  this  principle,  we  can- 
not fail  to  derive  the  greatest  consolation  from  the  fact,  that 
although  slavery  has  existed  in  our  country  for  the  last  two 
hundred  years,  there  have  been  but  three  attempts  at  insur- 
rection— one  in  Virginia,  one  in  South-Carolina,  and,  we  be- 
lieve, one  in  Louisiana— and  the  loss  of  lives  from  this  cause 
has  not  amounted  to  one  hundred  persons  in  all.  We  may 
then  calculate  in  the  next  two  hundred  years,  upon  a  similar 
result,  which  is  incomparably  smaller  than  the  number  which 
will  be  taken  off  in  free  States  by  murders  for  the  sake  of 
money. 

But  our  population  returns  have  been  looked  to,  and  it  has 
been  affirmed  that  they  show  a  steady  increase  of  blacks, 
which  will  finally  carry  them  in  all  proportion  beyond  the 
whites,  and  that  this  will  be  particularly  the  case  in  Eastern 
Virginia.  "We  have  no  fears  on  this  score  either;  even  if  it 
were  true,  the  danger  would  not  be  very  great.  AVith  the 
increase  of  the  blacks,  we  can  afford  to  enlarge  the  police ; 


472  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

and  we  will  venture  to  say,  that  with  the  hundredth  man  at 
our  disposal,  and  faithful  to  us,  we  would  keep  down  insur- 
rection in  any  large  country  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  But 
the  speakers  in  the  Virginia  Legislature,  in  our  humble 
opinion,  made  most  unwarrantable  inferences  from  the  census 
returns.  They  took  a  period  between  1790  and  1830,  and 
judged  exclusively  from  the  aggregate  results  of  the  whole 
time.  Mr.  Brown  pointed  out  their  fallacy,  and  showed  that 
there  was  but  a  small  portion  of  the  period  in  which  the  blacks 
had  rapidly  gained  upon  the  whites,  but  during  the  residue 
they  were  most  rapidly  losing  their  high  relative  increase, 
and  would,  perhaps,  in  1840,  exhibit  an  augmentation  less 
than  the  whites.  But  let  us  go  a  little  back.  In  1740,  the 
slaves  in  South-Carolina,  says  Marshall,  were  three  times  the 
whites ;  the  danger  from  them  was  greater  then  than  it  ever 
has  been  since,  or  ever  will  be  again.  There  was  an  insurrec- 
tion in  that  year,  which  was  put  down  with  the  utmost  ease, 
although  instigated  and  aided  by  the  Spaniards.  The  slaves 
in  Virginia,  at  the  same  period,  were  much  more  numerous 
than  the  whites.  Now,  suppose  some  of  those  peepers  into 
futurity  could  have  been  present,  would  they  not  have  pre- 
dicted the  speedy  arrival  of  the  time  when  the  blacks,  run- 
ning ahead  of  the  whites  in  numbers,  would  have  destroyed 
their  security  ?  In  1763,  the  black  population  of  Virginia 
was  100,000,  and  the  white  70,000.  In  South-Carolina,  the 
blacks  were  90,000,  and  the  whites  40,000.  Comparing 
these  with  the  returns  of  1740,  our  prophets,  could  they  have 
lived  so  long,  might  have  found  some-consolation  in  the  great- 
er relative  increase  of  the  whites.  Again,  when  we  see  in  1830, 
that  the  blacks  in  both  States  have  fallen  in  numbers  below 
the  whites,  our  prophets,  were  they  alive,  might  truly  be  pro- 
nounced/a/se.  (See  Holmes1  Annals  and  Marshall's  Life  of 
Washington,  on  this  subject.) 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  473 

Bat  we  will  now  proceed  to  examine  more  closely  the 
melancholy  inference  which  has  been  drawn  from  the  relative 
advances  of  the  white  and  black  populations  in  Virginia, 
during  the  last  forty  years,  and  to  show  upon  principles  of  an 
undeniable  character,  that  it  is  wholly  gratuitous,  without  any 
well  founded  data  from  which  to  deduce  it.  During  the 
whole  period  of  forty  years,  Virginia  has  been  pouring  forth 
emigrants  more  rapidly  to  the  West  than  any  other  State  in 
the  Union  ;  she  has  indeed  been  "the  fruitful  mother  of  em- 
pires." This  emigration  has  been  caused  by  the  cheap,  fertile, 
and  unoccupied  lands  of  the  West,  and  by  the  oppressive 
action  of  the  Federal  Government  on  the  southern  agricultu- 
ral States.  This  emigration  has  operated  most  injuriously 
upon  Virginia  interests,  and  has  had  a  powerful  tendency  to 
check  the  increase  of  the  whites,  without  producing  anything 
like  an  equal  effect  on  the  blacks. 

As  this  is  a  subject  of  very  great  importance,  we  shall  en- 
deavor briefly  to  explain  it.  We  have  already  said  in  the 
progress  of  'this  discussion,  that  the  emigration  of  a  class  of 
society  will  not  injure  the  community,  or  check  materially  the 
increase  of  population,  where  a  full  equivalent  is  left  in  the 
stead  of  the  emigrant.  The  largest  portion  of  slaves  sent  out 
of  Virginia,  is  sent  through  the  operation  of  our  internal  slave 
trade;  a  full  equivalent  being  thus  left  in  place  of  the  slave, 
this  emigration  becomes  an  advantage  to  the  State,  and  does 
not  check  the  black  population  as  much  as  at  first  we  should 
imagine,  because  it  furnishes  every  inducement  to  the  master 
to  attend  to  his  negroes,  to  encourage  marriage,  and  to  cause 
the  greatest  possible  number  to  be  raised,  and  thus  it  affords 
a  powerful  stimulus  to  the  sprint/  of  black  population,  which, 
in  a  great  measure,  counteracts  the  emigration.  But  when 
we  come  to  examine  into  the  efflux  of  the  white  population 
from  our  State  to  the  West,  we  find  a  totally  different  case 
40* 


4*74  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

presented  to  our  view.  The  emigration  of  the  white  man  not 
only  takes  a  laborer  from  the  State,  but  capital  likewise ;  so 
far,  therefore,  in  this  case,  from  the  State  gaining  an  equiva- 
lent for  the  emigrant,  she  not  only  loses  him,  but  his  caj.ital 
also,  and  thus  she  is, impoverished,  or  at  least  advances  more 
slowly  in  the  acquisition  of  wealth,  from  a  double  cause — 
from  the  loss  of  both  persons  and  capital. 

Let  us  examine  a  little  more  fully,  the  whole,  extent  of  the 
loss  which  the  State  thus  suffers,  and  we  shall  find  it  immea- 
surably beyond  our  hasty  conceptions.  In  the  first  place,  we 
cannot  properly  estimate  the  loss  of  labor  by  the  number  of 
emigrants,  for  we  must  recollect  the  majority  of  emigrants 
from  among  the  whites  consists  of  males,  who  form  decidedly 
the  more  productive  sex ;  and  these  males  are  generally  be- 
tween eighteen  and  thirty,  precisely  that  period  of  life  at 
which  the  laborer  is  most  productive,  and  has  ceased  to  be  a 
mere  consumer.  Up  to  this  period,  we  are  generally  an  ex- 
pense to  those  who  rear  us,  and  when  we  leave  the  State  at 
this  time,  it  loses  not  only  the  individuals,  but  all  the  capital, 
together  with  interest  on  that  capital,  which  have  been  spent 
in  rearing  and  educating.  Thus  a  father  has  been  for  years 
spending  the  whole  profits  of  his  estate  in  educating  his  sons, 
and  so  soon  as  that  education  is  completed  they  roam  off  to 
the  West.  The  society  of  Virginia  then  loses  both  the  indi- 
viduals and  the  capital  which  had  been  spent  upon  them, 
•without  an  equivalent.  Perhaps  a  young  man,  thus  educa- 
ted, if  he  were  to  remain  among  us,  could  make,  by  the  exer- 
cise of  his  talents,  two  or  three  thousand  dollars  per  annum. 
This  is  more  than  ten  field  laborers  could  make  by  their  labor, 
and  consequently  the  loss  of  one  such  man  as  above  described, 
is  equal  to  the  loss  of  ten  common  laborers  in  a  politico- 
economical  view,  and  perhaps  to  more  than  one  hundred  in  a 
moral  point  of  view.  We  have  made  some  exertion  to  ascer- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  475 

tain  the  average  annual  emigration  of  whites  from  the  State, 
but  without  success;  Supposing  the  number  to  be  three 
thousand,  and  we  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  far  less  less  than  the 
true  amount,  we  would  err  but  little  in  saying  that  these 
three  thousand  would  be  at  least  equal  to  twelve  thousand 
taken  from  among  mere  laborers. 

Now,  what  is  the  effect  of  this  great  abstraction  from  Vir- 
ginia, of  productive  citizens  and  capital  ?  Why,  most  assured- 
ly, to  prevent  the  accumulation  of  wealth,  and  the  increase  of 
white  population.  You  will  find,  on  examination,  that  this 
emigration  robs  the  land  of  its  fair  proportion  of  capital  and 
labor,  and  thus  injures  our  agriculture,  and  entirely  prevents 
all  improvements  of  our  lands;  it  sweeps  off  from  the  State 
the  circulating  capital  as  soon  as  formed,  and  leaves  scarcely 
any  thing  of  value  behind,  but  lands,  negroes  and  houses.  All 
this  lias  a  tendency  to  check  the  increase  of  the  whites,  not 
only  by  the  direct  lessening  of  the  population  by  emigration, 
but  much  more  by  paralyzing  the  spring  of  white  population. 
The  increase  of  the  blacks,  under  these  circumstances,  becomes 
much  more  rapid,  and  has  served  in  part  to  counteract  the 
deleterious  effects  springing  from  the  emigration  of  whites. 
In  this  point  of  view,  the  augmentation  of  our  black  popula- 
tion should  be  a  source  of  consolation,  instead  of  alarm  and 
despondency.  Let  us  now  see  whether  this  state  of  things  is 
forever  to  be  continued,  or  whether  there  be  irot  some  cheer- 
ing signs  in  the  political  horizon,  portending  a  better  and  a 
brighter  day  for  the  Old  Dominion,  in  the  vista  of  the  future. 
There  are  two  causes  evidently  calculated  to  check  this  emi- 
gration of  capital  and  citizens  from  Virginia,  and  to  insure  a 
more  rapid  increase  of  her  white  population,  and  augmenta- 
tion of  her  wealth.  These  are,  first,  the  filling  up  of  our  va- 
cant territory  of  population  ;  and  second,  the  completion  of 
such  a  system  of  internal  improvement  in  Virginia,  as  will 


476  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

administer  to  the  multiplied  wants  of  her  people,  and  take  off 
the  surplus  produce  of  the  interior  of  the  State  to  the  great 
market  of  the  world — the  first  dependent  on  time,  and  the 
second  on  the  energy  and  enterprise  of  the  State. 

1st.  It  is  very  evident,  that  as  population  advances  and 
overflows  our  Western  territory,  all  the  good  lands  will  be 
gradually  occupied  ;  a  longer  and  a  longer  barrier  of  cultiva- 
ted and  populous  region  will  be  interposed  between  Virginia 
and  cheap  Western  lauds,  and  with  this  onward  march  of 
population  and  civilization,  emigration  from  the  old  States 
must  gradually  cease.  The  whole  population  of  the  Union 
is  now  13,000,000  ;  in  less  than  fifty  years  from  this  time, 
(a  short  period  in  the  history  of  nations,)  we  shall  have  fifty 
millions  of  souls — our  people  will  then  cease  to  be  migratory, 
and  assume  that  stability  every  where  witnessed  in  the  older 
•countries  of  the  World;  and  this  result  will  be  greatly  accele- 
rated, if  the  southern  country  shall,  in  the  meantime,  be 
relieved  from  the  blighting  oppression  of  federal  exactions, 
As  this  state  of  things  arrives,  the  whites  in  Virginia  will  be 
found  to  increase  more  rapidly  than  the  blacks ;  and  thus, 
that  most  alarming  inference  drawn  from  disproportionate  in- 
crease of  the  two  castes,  for  the  last  forty  years,  will  be  shown, 
in  the  lapse  of  time,  to  be  a  false  vision,  engendered  by  fear, 
and  unsupported  by  philosophy  and  fuel.  We  already  per- 
ceive that  the  whites,  in  the  ratio  of  their  increase,  have  been, 
for  the  last  twenty  years,  gradually  gaining  on  the  blacks ; 
thus,  in  1790,  east  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  the  whites  were  314,- 
523,  and  the  slaves  277,449 — in  1830,-  the  proportions  were, 
in  the  same  district,  whites,  375,935  ;  slaves,  418,529  ;  gain 
of  the  blacks  on  the  whites,  77,398.  "But  when  did  this 
gain  take  place  ?"  Between  1800  and  1810,  the  rate  of  in- 
crease of  the  whites  was  only  seven-tenths  of  one  per  cent., 
while  that  of  the  slaves  was  eleven  per  cent.  From  1810  to 


PROFESSOR  DEW  OX  SLAVERY.  477 

1820,  the  ratio  of  the  increase  of  whites  was  three  per  cent., 
and  that  of  slaves  was  six  per  cent.  From  1820  to  1830,  the 
ratio  of  increase  of  the  whites  was  near  eight  per  cent.,  and 
that  of  the  slaves  not  quite  nine  percent. ;  and  when  we  take 
into  consideration  the  whole  population  of  our  State,  east  and 
west  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  we  find  that  the  whites  have  been 
gaining  at  the  rate  of  fifteen  per  cent,  for  the  last  ten  years, 
while  the  slaves  have  been  increasing  at  the  rate  often  per 
cent,  only — and  thus  is  it  we  find  that  those  very  statistics 
which  are  adduced  by  the  abolitionists,  to  alarm  the  timid, 
and  operate  on  the  imagination  of  the  unreflecting,  turn  out, 
upon  closer  scrutiny,  to  be  of  the  most  cheering  and  consola- 
tory character,  clearly  demonstrating,  upon  the  very  principle 
of  calculation  assumed  by  the  abolitionists  J;hemselves,  that 
the  condition  of  the  whites  is  rapidly  altering  for  the  better, 
\vith  the  lapse  of  time. 

We  will  now  proceed  to  point  out  the  operation  of  the  se- 
cond cause,  above  mentioned — a  judicious  system  of  internal 
improvement  in  checking  emigration  to  the  West.  It  is  well 
known,  that  in  proportion  to  the  facilities  which  are  offered 
to  commerce,  and  the  ease  and  cheapness  with  which  the  pro- 
ducts of  land  may  be  conveyed  to  market,  so  do  the  profits  of 
agriculture  rise,  and  with  them,  a  general  prosperity  is  dif- 
fused over  the  whole  country — new  products  are  raised  upon 
the  soil — new  occupations  springing  up — old  ones  are  enlarg 
ed  and  rendered  more  productive — a  wider  field  is  opened  for 
the  display  of  the  energies  of  both  mind  and  body,  and  the 
rising  generation  are  bound  down  to  the  scenes  of  their  infan- 
cy, and  the  homes  of  their  fathers ;  not  by  the  tie  of  affection 
and  association  alone,  but  by  the  still  stronger  ligament  of 
interest.  Sons  who  have  spent  in  their  education  all  the  pro- 
fits which  a  kind  father  has  earned  by  hard  industry  on  the 
soil,  will  not  now  be  disposed  to  wring  from  his  kindness  the 


478  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

small  patrimony  which  lie  mny  possess,  and  move  off  with  tlio 
proceeds  to  the  West  ;  but  general  prosperity  will  induce 
them  to  remain  in  the  land  which  gave  them  birth,  to  add  to 
the  wealth  and  the  population  of  the  State,  and  to  be  a  com- 
fort and  a  solace  to  their  aged  parents  in  the  decline  of  their 
days.  We  do,  indeed,  consider  internal  improvement  in  Vir- 
ginia, the  great  panacea  by  which  most  of  the  ills  which  now 
weigh  down  the  State  may  be  removed,  and  health  and  activ- 
ity communicated  to  every  department  of  industry. 

We  are  happy  to  see  that  the  Legislature  of  Virginia,  dur- 
ing the  last  session,  incorporated  a  company  to  complete  the 
James  River  and  Kanawha  improvements,  and  that  the  city 
of  Richmond  has  so  liberall}7  contributed  by  her  subscriptions, 
as  to  render  the^»roject  almost  certain  of  success.  It  is  this 
groat  improvement  which  is  destined  to  revolutionize  the  finan- 
cial condition  of  the  Old  Dominion,  and  speed  her  on  more 
rapidly  in  wealth  and  numbers,  than  she  has  ever  advanced 
before  ;  the  snail  pace  at  which  she  has  hitherto  been  crawl- 
ing, is  destined  to  be  converted  into  the  giant's  stride,  and 
this  very  circumstance,  of  itself,  will  defeat  all  the  gloomy 
predictions  about  the  blacks.  The  first  effect  of  the  improve- 
ment will  be  to  raise  up  larger  towns  in  the  eastern  portion 
of  the  State.*  Besides  other  manifold  advantages  which 

*  Dr.  Cooper,  of  Columbia,  whose  capacious  mind  has  explored 
every  department  of  knowledge,  and  whose  ample  experience  through 
a  long  life,  has  furnished  him  with  the  most  luminous  illustrations 
and  facts,  has  most  admirably  pointed  out  in  the  25th  chapter  of  his 
Political  Economy,  the  great  advantages  of  large  towns,  and  we  have 
no  doubt  but  that  the  absence  of  large  towns  in  Virginia,  has  been  one 
cause  of  the  inferiority  of  Virginia  to  some  of  the  Northern  States,  in 
energy  and  industry.  We  are  sorry  that  our  limits  will  not  allow  us 
to  insert  a  portion  of  the  chapter  on  the  advantages  of  large  towns, 
just  referred  to,  and  that  we  must  content  ourselves  with  a^  warm 
recommendation  of  its  perusal. 


DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  479 

these  towns  will  diffuse,  they  will  have  a  tendency  to  draw 
into  them  the  capital  and  free  laborers  of  the  North,  and  in 
this  way  to  destroy  the  proportion  of  the  blacks.  Baltimore 
is  now  an  exemplification  of  the  fact,  which,  by  its  mighty 
agency,  is  fast  making  Maryland  a  non-slaveholding  State. 
Again,  the  rise  of  cities  in  the  lower  part  of  Virginia,  and  in- 
creased density  of  population,  will  render  the  division  of  labor 
more  complete,  break  down  the  large  farms  into  small  ones, 
and  substitute,  in  a  great  measure,  the  garden  for  the  planta- 
tion cultivation  ;  consequently,  less  slave,  and  more  free  labor 
will  be  requisite,  and  in  due  time  the  abolitionists  will  find 
this  most  lucrative  system  working  to  their  heart's  content, 
increasing'  the  prosperity  of  Virginia,  and  diminishing  the 
evils  of  slavery,  without  those  impoverishing  effects  which  all 
other  schemes  must  necessarily  have. 

Upon  the  \Vest,  particularly,  the  beneficial  effects  of  a  ju- 
dicious system  of  improvement,  will  be  almost  incalculable, 
At  this  moment,  the  emigration  from  the  western  and  middle 
counties  of  V'irginia,  is  almost  as  great  as  from  the  eastern. 
The  western  portion  of  Virginia,  in  consequence  of  its  great 
distance  from  market,  and  the  wretched  condition  of  the  va- 
rious communications  leading  through  the  State,  is  necessarily 
a  grazing  country.  A  grazing  country  requires  but  a  very 
sparse  population,  and  consequently,  but  small  additions  to 
our  western  population  renders  it  redurdant,  and  there  is  an 
immediate  tendency  in  the  supernumeraries  to  emigration. 
A  gentleman  from  the  West  lately  informed  us,  that  in  his 
immediate  neighborhood  he  knew  of  seventy  persons  who 
had  moved  off,  and  many  others  were  exceedingly  anxious  to 
go,  but  were  detained  becan-e  they  could  not  dispose  of  their 
lands.  The  remedy  for  all  this  is  as  glaring  as  the  light  of 
•'•!-d;iy  sun.  (*\\->'  lo  tlii-  portion  of  the  State  the  com- 
munications which  they  require.  Let  our  groat  central  im- 


480  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

provement  be  completed,  and  immediately  the  grazing  system 
will  be  converted  into  the  grain  growing,  and  the  very  first 
effect  of-sticking  the  plough  into  the  soil,  which  has  hitherto 
grown  grass  alone,  will  be  an  increased  demand  for  labor, 
which  will  at  once  check  the  tide  of  emigration,  so  rapidly 
flowing  on  to  the  distant  West — and  agricultural  profits  will 
rise  at  once  50  or  100  per  cent.  One  of  the  most  closely 
observant  citizens  of  the  West  has  informed  us,  that  he  can 
most  conclusively  show,  that  if  flour  would  command  $3  a 
barrel,  on  the  farms  in  his  neighborhood,  the  profits  of  raising 
grain  would  be  double  those  of  the  grazing  system.  Here, 
then,  is  the  true  ground  for  unity  of  action,  between  the  east- 
ern and  western  portion  of  Virginia  ;  let  them  steadily  unite 
in  pushing  forward  a  vigorous  system  of  internal  improve- 
ment. Under  what  a  miserably  short-sighted  and  suicidal 
policy  must  the  West  act,  then,  if  it  seriously  urges  the  eman- 
cipation of  our  slaves.  The  very  first  effect  of  it  will  be,  to 
stop  forever  the  great  central  improvement.  Where  is  the 
State  to  get  the  money  from,  to  cut  canals  and  railroads 
through  her  territory,  and  send  out  thousands  besides  to  Af- 
rica ?  The  very  agitation  of  this  most  romantic  and  imprac- 
ticable scheme  is  calculated  to  nip  in  the  bud  our  whole  sys- 
tem of  internal  improvements  ;  and  we  can  but  hope  that  the 
1ntelligence  of  the  West  will  soon  discover  how  very  hostile 
this  whole  abolition  scheme  is  to  all  its  true  interests,  and  will 
curb  in  their  wild  career,  by  the  right  of  instruction,  those 
who  would  uproot  the  very  foundations  of  society,  if  their 
schemes  should  ever  be  carried  out  to  their  full  extent.  We 
venture  to  predict,  that,  if  these  abolition  schemes  shall  ever 
be  seriously  studied  in  Virginia,  that  there  will  be  but  one 
voice — but  one  opinion  concerning  them,  throughout  the 
State — that  they  are  at  war  with  the  true  interests  of  Virgi- 
nia, in  every  quarter — in  the  West  as  well  as  the  East.  We 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  481 

liope  then,,  most  sincerely,  that  those  gentlemen  who  have 
been  so  perseveringly  engaged  in  urging  forward  this  great 
scheme  of  improvement,  will  not  falter  until  the  work  is  ac- 
complished. We  are  well  convinced  that  they  are  the  true 
benefactors  of  the  State — and  they  deserve  well  of  the  repub- 
lic— and  at  some  day,  not  very  distant,  they  will  have  the 
consolation  of  seeing  that  the  moral  effects  of  this  system  will 
be  no  less  salutary  than  the  physical.  We  hope,  then,  we 
have  shown,  upon  principles  which  cannot  be  controverted, 
that  the  experience  of  the  last  forty  years  in  Virginia,  need 
not  fill  us  with  apprehensions  for  the  future.  Time  and  inter- 
nal improvement  will  cure  all  our  ills,  and  speed  on  the  Old 
Dominion  more  rapidly  in  wealth  and  prosperity. 

Many  are  most  willing  to  allow  the  force  of  the  preceding 
reasoning,  and  to  admit  that  there  is  no  real  danger  to  be 
apprehended  either  now,  or  in  future,  from  our  blacks  ;  and 
yet,  they  say  there  is  a  feeling  of  insecurity  throughout  the 
slaveholding  country,  and  this  sense  of  insecurity  destroys  our 
happiness.  Now,  we  are  most  willing  to  admit  that,  after 
such  an  insurrection  as  that  in  Southampton,  the  public  mind 
will  be  disturbed,  and  alarm  and  apprehension  will  pervade 
the  community.  But  the  fact  proves,  that  all  this  is  of  short? 
very  short  duration.  We  believe  that  there  was  not  a  single 
citizen  in  Virginia,  who  felt  any  alarm  from  the  negroes,  pre- 
vious to  the  Southampton  tragedy,  and  we  believe  at  this  mo- 
ment there  are  very  few  who  feel  the  slightest  apprehension. 
We  have  no  doubt,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem  to  some,  but 
that  the  population  of  our  slaveholding  country  enjoys  as 
much  or  more  conscious  security,  than  any  other  people  on  the 
face  of  the  globe  !  You  will  find  throughout  the  whole  slave- 
holding  portion  of  Virginia,  and  we  believe  it  is  the  same  in 
the  southern  States,  generally,  that  the  houses  are  scarcely 
ever  fastened  at  night,  so  as  to  be  completely  inaccessible  to 
41 


482  PROFESSOR  DEW  OX  SLAVERY. 

those  without,  except  in  towns.  This  simple  fact  is  demon- 
stration complete  of  the  conscious  security  of  our  citizens,  and 
their  great  confidence  in  the  fidelity  of  the  blacks.  There  is 
no  las  peuple,  no  lower  class,  on  the  globe,  among  whom  the 
life  of  a  man  is  so  secure  as  among  the  slaves  of  America,  for 
they  rarely  murder,  as  we  have  already  seen,  for  the  sake  of 
money.  A  negro  will  rob  your  hen-roost  or  your  stye,  but  it  is 
rare  indeed,  that  he  can  ever  be  induced  to  murder  you.  Upon 
this  subject  we  speak  from  experience.  We  have  sojourned 
in  some  of  the  best  regulated  countries  of  Europe,  and  we 
know  that  every  where  the  man  of  property  dares  not  elose 
his  eyes  before  every  window  and  door  are  barred  against  in- 
truders from  without.  And,  we  believe,  even  in  our  northern 
States,  these  precautions  are  adopted  to  a  much  greater  extent 
than  with  us  ;  and,  consequently,  mark  a  much  greater  sense 
of  insecurity  than  exists  among  us. 

5thly,  and  lastly.  Slave  labor  is  unproductive,  and  the 
distressed  condition  of  Virginia  and  the  whole  South  is  owing 
to  this  cause.  Our  limits  will  not  allow  us  to  investigate  fully 
this  assertion,  but  a  very  partial  analysis  will  enable  us  to 
show  that  the  truth  of  the  general  proposition  upon  which  the 
conclusion  is  based,  -depends  on  circumstances,  and  that  those 
circumstances  do  not  apply  to  our  southern  country.  The 
ground  assumed  by  Smith  and  Storch,  who  are  the  most  able 
supporters  of  the  doctrine  of  the  superior  productiveness  of 
free  labor,  is  that  each  one  is  actuated  by  a  desire  to  accumu  • 
late  when  free,  and  this  desire  produces  much  more  efficient 
and  constant  exertions  than  can  possibly  be  expected  from  the 
feeble  operation  of  fear  upon  the  slave.  We  are,  in  the  main, 
converts  to  this  doctrine,  but  must  be  permitted  to  limit  it  by 
some  considerations.  It  is  very  evident,  when  we  look  to  the 
various  countries  in  which  there  is  free  labor  alone,  that  a  vast 
difference  in  its  productiveness  is  manifested.  The  English 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  483 

operative  we  are  disposed  to  consider  the  most  productive 
laborer  in  the  world,  and  the  Irish  laborer,  in  his  immediate 
neighborhood,  is  not  more  than  equal  to  the  southern  slave — 
the  Spanish  and  even  Italian  laborers  are  inferior.  Now,  how 
are  we  to  account  for  this  great  difference  ?  It  will  be  found 
mainly  to  depend  upon  the  operation  of  two  great  principles, 
and  secondarily  upon  attendant  circumstances.  These  two 
principles  are  the  desire  to  accumulate  and  better  our  condi- 
tion, and  a  desire  to  indulge  in  idleness  and  inactivity. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  principle  of  idleness  triumph- 
ed over  the  desire  for  accumulation  among  the  savages  of 
North  and  South  America,  among  the  African  nations,  among 
the  blacks  of  St.  Domingo,  <fec.,  and  nothing  but  the  strong 
arm  of  authority  could  overcome  its  operation.  In  southern 
countries  idleness  is  very  apt  to  predominate,  even  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances,  over  the  desire  to  accumulate, 
and  slave  labor,  consequently,  in  such  countries,  is  most  pro- 
ductive. Again,  staple  growing  States  are  coeteris  paribus, 
more  favorable  to  slave  labor  than  manufacturing  States. 
Slaves  in  such  countries  may  be  worked  by  bodies  under  the 
eye  of  a  superintendent,  and  made  to  perform  more  labor 
than  freemen.  There  is  no  instance  of  the  successful  cultiva- 
tion of  the  sugar  cane  by  free  labor.  St.  Domingo,  once  the 
greatest  sugar  growing  island  in  the  world,  makes  now  scarce- 
ly enough  for  her  own  supply.  We  very  much  doubt  even 
whether  slave  labor  be  not  best  for  all  southern  agricultural 
countries.  Humboldt,  in  his  New  Spain,  says  he  doubts 
whether  there  be  a  plant  on  the  globe  so  productive  as  the 
banana,  and  yet  these  banana  districts,  strange  to  tell,  are  the 
poorest  and  most  miserable  in  all  South  America,  because 
the  people  only  labor  a  little  to  support  themselves,  and  spend 
the  rest  of  their  time  in  idleness.  There  is  no  doubt  but 
slave  labor  would  be  the  most  productive  kind  in  these  dis- 


484  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

tricts.  We  doubt  whether  the  extreme  south  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  West  India  Islands,  would  ever  have  been  cul- 
tivated to  the  same  degree  of  perfection  as  now,  by  any  other 
than  slave  labor.  The  history  of  colonization  furnishes  no  ex- 
ample whatever,  of  the  transplantation  of  whites  to  very  warm 
or  tropical  latitudes  without  signal  deterioration  of  character, 
attended  with  an  unconquerable  aversion  to  labor.  And  it 
would  seem,  that  nothing  but  slavery  can  remedy  this  other- 
wise inevitable  tendency.  The  fact,  that  to  the  North,  negro 
slavery  has  every  where  disappeared,  whilst  to  the  South  it 
has  maintained  its  ground  triumphantly  against  free  labor,  is 
of  itself  conclusive  of  the  superior  productiveness  of  slave  labor 
in  southern  latitudes.  We  believe  that  Virginia  and  Mary- 
land are  too  far  North  for  slave  labor,  but  all  the  States  to  the 
South  of  these  are,  perhaps,  better  adapted  to  slave  labor  than 
free. 

But  it  is  said,  with  the  increasing  density  of  population, 
free  labor  becomes  cheaper  than  slave,  and  finally  extinguish- 
es it,  as  has  actually  happened  in  the  west  of-  Europe ;  this , 
we  are  ready  to  admit,  but  think  it  was  owing  to  a  change  in 
the  tillage,  and  rise  of  manufactures  and  commerce,  to  which 
free  labor  alone  is  adapted.  As  a  proof  of  this,  we  can  cite 
the  populous  empire  of  China,  and  the  Eastern  nations,  gene- 
rally, where  slave  labor  has  stood  its  ground  against  free  labor, 
although  the  population  is  denser,  and  the  proportional  means 
of  subsistence  more  scanty  than  any  where  else  on  the  face  of 
the  globe.  How  is  this  to  be  accounted  for,  let  us  ask  ?  Does 
it  not  prove,  that  under  some  circumstances,  slave  labor  is  as 
productive  as  free  ?  We  would  as  soon  look  to  China  to  test 
this  principle,  as  any  other  nation  on  earth.  The  slave  dis- 
tricts in  China,  according  to  the  report  of  travellers,  are  deter- 
mined by  latitude  and  agricultural  products.  The  wheat 
growing  districts  have  no  slaves,  but  the  rice,  cotton,  and  sugar- 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

growing-  districts,  situated  in  warm  climates,  have  all  of  them 
slaves,  affording  a  perfect  exemplification  of  the  remarks  above 
made.  Again,  looking  to  the  nations  of  antiquity,  if  the 
Scriptural  accounts  are  to  be  relied  on,  the  number  of  inhabi- 
tants of  Palestine  must  have  been  more  than  6,000,000  ;  at 
which  rate,  Palestine  was  at  least,  when  taking  into  conside- 
ration her  limited  territory,  five  times  as  populous  as  England.* 
Now,  we  know  the  tribes  of  Judah  and  Israel  both  used  slave 
labor,  and  it  must  have  been  exceedingly  productive  ;  for,  we 
find  the  two  Kings  of  Judah  and  Israel  bringing  into  the  field 
no  less  than  1,200,000  chosen  men  ;f  and  Jehosaphat,  the  son 
of  Asa,  had  an  army  consisting  of  1, 160,000  ;J  and  what  a 
prodigious  force  must  he  have  commanded,  had  he  been  sov- 
ereign, of  .all  the  tribes.  Nothing  but  the  most  productive 
.labor  could  ever  have  supported  the  immense  armies  which 
were  then  led  into  the  field. 

Wallace  thinks  that  ancient  Egypt  must  have  been  thrice 
as  populous  as  England  ;  and  yet  so  valuable  was  slave  labor, 
that  ten  of  the  most  dreadful  plagues  that  ever  affected  man- 
kind, could  not  dispose  the  selfish  heart  of  Pharoah  to  part 
with  his  Israelitish  slaves ;  and  \vhen  he  lost  them,  Egypt 
sunk,  never  to  rise  to  her  'pristine  grandeur  again.  Ancient 
Italy,  too,  not  to  mention  Greece,  was  exceedingly  populous, 
and  perhaps  Rome  was  a  larger  city  than  any  of  modern  times ; 
and  yet  slave  labor  supported  these  dense  populations,  and 
even  rooted  out  free  labor.  All  these  examples  prove  suffi- 
ciently, that  under  certain  circumstances,  slave  is  as  produc- 
tive, and  even  more  productive,  than  free  labor. 

But  the  Southern  States,  and  particularly  Virginia,  have 
been  compared  with  the  non-slaveholding  States,  and  pronounc- 

*  See  Wallace  on  the  Numbers  of  Mankind,  p.  52,  Edin.  edition. 
\  2d.  Chron.  xiii.  3. 
\  2d.  Chron.  xvii. 
41* 


486  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

ed  far  behind  them  in  the  general  increase  of  wealth  and  pop- 
ulation ;  and  this,  it  is  said,  is  a  decisive  proof  of  the  inferior- 
ity of  slave  labor  in  this  country.  We  are  sorry  that  we 
have  not  space  for  a  thorough  investigation  of  this  assertion, 
but  we  have  no  doubt  of  its  fallacy.  Look  to  the  progress  of 
the  colonies  before  the  establishment  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, and  you  find  that  the  slaveholding  were  the  most  pros- 
perous and  the  most  wealthy.  The  North  dreaded  the  form- 
ation of  the  confederated  government,  precisely  because  of  its 
poverty.  This  is  an  historical  fact.  It  stood  to  the  South,  as 
Scotland  did  to  England  at  the  period  of  the  Union ;  and 
feared  lest  the  South,  by  its  superior  wealth,  supported  by  this 
very  slave  labor,  all  of  a  sudden,  has  become  so  unproductive, 
should  abstract  the  little  wealth  which  it  possessed.  Again, 
look  to  the  exports  at  the  present  time  of  the  whole  confede- 
racy, and  what  do  we  see  ?  Why,  that  one-third  of  the 
States,  and  those  slaveholding,  too,  furnish  two-thirds  of  the 
whole  exports !  But  although  this  is  now  the  case,  we  are 
still  not  prosperous.  Let  us  ask,  then,  two.  simple  questions  : 
1st.  How  came  the  South,  for  two  hundred  years,  to  prosper 
with  her  slave  labor,  if  so  very  unproductive  and  ruinous  ? 
An^2dly.  How  does  it  happen,  that  her  exports  are  so 
great,  e,ven  now,  and  that  her  prosperity  is,  nevertheless,  on 
the  decline?  Painful  as  the  accusation  may  be  to  the  heart 
of  the  true  patriot,  we  are  forced  to  assert,  that  the  unequal 
operation  of  the  Federal  Government  has  principally  achieved 
it.  The  North  has  found  that  it  could  not  compete  with  the 
South  in  agriculture,  and  has  had  recourse  to  the  system  on 
duties,  for  the  purpose  of  raising  up  the  business  of  manufac- 
tures. This  is  a  business  in  which  the  slave  labor  cannot  com- 
pete with  northern,  and  in  order  to  carry  this  system  through, 
a  coalition  has  been  formed  with  the  West,  by  which  a  large 
portion  of  the  Federal  funds  are  to  be  spent  in  that  quarter 


PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY.  487 

for  internal  improvements.  These  duties  act  as  a  discourage- 
ment to  southern  industry,  which  furnishes  the  exports  by 
which  the  imports  are  purchased,  and  a  bounty  to  northern 
labor;  and  the  partial  disbursements  of  the  funds,  increase  the 
pressure  on  the- South  to  a  still  greater  degree.  It  is  not  slave 
labor,  then,  which  has  produced  our  depression,  but  it  is  the 
action  of  the  Federal  Government  which  is  ruining  slave  labor. 
There  is,  at  ihis  moment,  an  exemplification  of  the  destruc- 
tive influence  of  government  agency  in  the  West  Indies.  The 
British  West  India  Islands  are  now  in  a  more  depressed  con- 
dition than  any  others,  and  both  the  Edinburgh  and  London 
Quarterly  Reviews  charge  their  depression  upon  the  regula- 
tions, taxing  sugar,  coffee,  &c.,  and  preventing  them,  at  the 
same  time,  from  purchasing  bread  stuffs,  &c.,  from  the  United 
States,  which  can  be  furnished  by  them  cheaper  than  from 
any  other  quarter.  Some  of  the  philanthropists  of  Great 
Britain  cry  out  it  is  slavery  which  has  done  it,  and  the  slaves 
must  be  liberated  ;  but  they  are  at  once  refuted  by  the  fact, 
that  never  has  an  island  flourished  more  rapidly  than  Cuba,  in 
their  immediate  neighborhood.  And  Cuba  flourishes  because 
she  enjoys  free  trade,  and  has  procured,  of  late,  plenty  of 
slaves.  It  is  curious  that  the  population  of  this  island  has, 
for  the  last  thirty  years,  kept  pace  with  that  of  Pennsylvania, 
one  of  the  most  flourishing  of  the  States  of  the  confederacy, 
and  her  wealth  has  increased  in  a  still  greater  ratio.*  Look 
again  to  Brazil,  perhaps  at  this  moment  the  most  prosperous 
state  of  South  America,  and  we  find -her  slaves  three  times 
more  numerous  than  the  freemen.  Mr.  Brougham,  in  his 
Colonial  Policy,  says  that  Cayenne  never  flourished  as  long  as 
she  was  scantily  supplied  with  slaves,  but  her  prosperity  com- 
menced the  moment  she  was  supplied  with  an  abundance  of 

*  See  some  interesting  statistics  concerning  this  island  in  Mr.  Poin- 
sctt's  Notes  on  Mexico. 


488  PROFESSOR  DE-W  OX  SLAVERY. 

this  unproductive  labor.  Now  w$  must  earnestly  ask  an  ex- 
planation of  these  phenomena,  upon  the  principle  that  slave 
labor  is  unproductive. 

There  are  other  causes,  too,  which  have  operated  in  concert 
with  the  Federal  Government,  to  d'epress  the  South.  The  cli- 
mate is  unhealthy,  and  upon  average,  perhaps  one-  tenth  of 
the  labor  is  suspended  during  the  sickly  months.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  travelling,  too,  from  this  cause  to  the  North,  which 
abstracts  the  capital  from  the  South,  and  spreads  it  over  the 
North.  The  emigration  from  the  South  to  the  West,  as  we  have 
before  seen,  is  very  great  and  very  injurious;  and  added  to  all 
this,  the  standard  of  comfort  is  much  higher  in  the  slaveholding 
than  the  non-slaveholding  States.*  All  these  circumstances 
together,  are  sufficient  to  account  for  the  depressed  condition 
of  the  South,  without  asserting  that  slave  labor  is  valueless. 

*  In  the  Virginia  debate,  it  was  said  that  the  slow  progress  of  the 
Virginia  population  was  a  most  unerring  symptom  ofher  want  of  pros- 
perity, and  the  inefficacy  of  slave  labor.  Now  we  protest  against  this 
criterion,  unless  very  cautiously  applied.  Ireland  suffers  more  from 
want  and  famine  than  any  other  country  in  Europe,  and  yet  her  popu- 
lation advances  almost  as  rapidly  as  ours,  and  it  is  this  very  increase 
which  curses  the  country  with  the  plague  or  famine.  In  the  High- 
lands of  Scotland,  they  have  a  very  sparse  population,  scarcely  increas- 
ing at  all ;  and  yet  they  are  much  better  fed,  clothed,  <fcc.,  than  in 
Ireland.  Malthus  has  proved,  that  there  are  tvro  species  of  checks 
which  repress  redundant  populations — positive  and  preventive.  It  is 
the  latter  which  keeps  down  the  Scotch  population1;  while  the  former, 
always  accompanied  with  misery,  keeps  down  the  Irish.  We  believe, 
at  this  time,  the  preventive  checks  are  in  full  operation  in  Virginia. 
The  people  of  this  State  live  much  better  Ihan  the  same^  classes  to 
the  North,  and  they  will  not  get  married  unless  there  is  a  prospect  of 
maintaining  their  families  in  the  same  style  they  have  been  accustomed 
to  live  in.  We  believe  the  preventive  checks  may  commence  their 
operation  too  soon  for  the  wealth  of  a  State,  but  they  always  mark  a 
high  degree  of  civilization — so  that  the  slow  progress  of  population  in 
Virginia  turns  out  be  her  highest  eulogy. 


PROFESSOR  DEW  OX  SLAVERY.  489 

But  we  believe  all  other  causes  as  "dust  in  the  balance," 
when  compared  with  the  operation  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment. 

How  does  it  happen  that  Louisiana,  with  a  greater  propor. 
tional  numbers  of  slaves  than  any  other  State  in  the  Union, 
with  the  "most  insalubrious  climate,  with  one-fourth  of  her 
white  population  spread  over  the  more  northern  States  in  the 
sickly  season,  and  with  a  higher  standard  of  comfort  than 
perhaps  any  other  State  in  the  Union,  is  nevertheless  one  of 
the  most  rapidly  nourishing  in  the  whole  southern  country  ? 
The  true  answer  is,  she  has  been  so  fortunately  situated  as  to 
be  able  to  reap  the  fruits  of  Federal  protection.  "  Midas's 
wand"  has  touched  her,  and  she  has  reaped  the  golden  har- 
vest.- There  is  no  complaint  there  of  the  unproductiveness  of 
slave  labor. 

But  it  is  time  to  bring  this  long  article  to  a  close ;  it  is  upon 
a  subject  which,  we  have  most  reluctantly  discussed ;  but,  as 
we  have  already  said,  the  example  was  set  from  a  higher 
quarter  ;  the  seal  has  been  broken,  and  we  therefore  deter- 
mined to  enter  fully  into  the  discussion.  If  our  positions  be 
true,  and  it  does  seem  to  us  they  may  be  sustained  by  reason- 
ing almost  as  conclusive  as  the  demonstrations. of  the  mathe- 
matician, it  follows,  that  the  time  for  emancipation  has  not 
yet  arrived,  and  perhaps  it  never  will.  We  hope,  sincerely, 
that  the  intelligent  sons  of  Virginia  will  ponder  before  they 
move — before  they  enter  into  a  scheme  which  will  destroy 
more  than  half  Virginia's  wealth,  and  drag  her  down  from 
her  proud  and  elevated  station  among  the  mean  things  of  the 
earth, — and  when,  Sampson-like,  she  shall,  by  this  ruinous 
scheme,  be  shorn  of  all  her  power  and  all  her  glory,  the  pass- 
ing stranger  may  at  some  future  day  exclaim, 

The  Niobe  of  nations — there  she  stands, 
"^Friendless  and  helpless  in  her  voiceless  woe." 


490  PROFESSOR  DEW  ON  SLAVERY. 

Once  more,  then,  do  we  call  xipon  our  statesmen  to  pause, 
ere  they  engage  in  this  ruinous  scheme.  The  power  of  man 
has  limits,  and  he  should  never  attempt  impossibilities.  We 
do  believe  it  is  beyond  the  power  of  man  to  separate  the  ele- 
ments of  our  population,  even  if  it  were  desirable.  The-  deep 
and  solid  foundations  of  society  cannot  be  broken  up  by  the 
vain  fiat  of  the  legislator.  We  must  recollect  that  the  laws 
of  Lycurgus  were  promulgated,  the  sublime  eloquence  of  De- 
mosthenes and  Cicero  was  heard,  and  the  glorious  achieve- 
ments of  Epaminondas .  and  Scipio  were  witnessed,  in  coun- 
tries where  slavery  existed — without  for  one  moment  loosening 
the  tie  between  master  and  slave.  We  must  recollect,  too, 
that  Poland  has  been  desolated  ;  that  Kosciusko,  Sobieski, 
Scrynecki,  have  fought  and  bled  for  the  cause  of  liberty  in  that 
country ;  that  one  of  her  monarchs  annulled,  in  words,  the  tie 
between  master  and  slave,  and  yet  the  order  of  nature  has, 
in  the  end,  vindicated  itself,  and  the  dependence  between 
master  and  slave  has  scarcely  for  a  moment  ceased. .  We 
must  recollect,  in  fine,  that  our  own  country  has  waded 
through  two  dangerous  wars — that  the  thrilling  eloquence  of 
the  Demosthenes  of  our  land  has  been  heard  with  rapture, 
exhorting  to  death,  rather  than  slavery, — that  the  most  libe- 
ral principles  have  ever  been  promulgated  and  sustained,  in 
our  deliberate  bodies,  and  before  our  judicial  tribunals — and 
the  whole  has  passed  by  without  breaking  or  tearing  asunder 
the  elements  of  our  social  fabric.  Let  us  reflect  on  these 
things,  and  learn  wisdom  from  experience  ;  and  know  that 
the  relations  of  society,  generated  by  the  lapse  of  ages,  cannot 
be  altered  in  a  day. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 


THE  PRO-SLAVERY  ARGUMENT  CHARLESTON 


